Fairfield General Hospital A&E not being downgraded

Fairfield General Hospital A&E

The A&E Department at Fairfield General Hospital is not being downgraded.

In a joint statement Sir David Dalton, Chief Executive of The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, and Stuart North, Chief Officer at NHS Bury CCG, said: “Recent rumours of changing the status of the A&E Department at Fairfield General Hospital in Bury are false.

"There are no plans to downgrade the service. It will continue to provide its local emergency department service 24/7, seven days a week. Fairfield will continue its essential role as part of the larger network of urgent care systems across Greater Manchester.

“The key to the future success of the Pennine Acute Trust is having clear and distinct plans for each of our hospital sites at Bury, Rochdale, Oldham and North Manchester. With specific reference to Fairfield General, our plans are to build on our clinical services, including the specialist Stroke Centre, for which an onsite Emergency Department is essential.”

The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust runs Fairfield General Hospital in Bury. Each of Pennine Acute Trust’s site service plans will form an overarching Clinical Services Strategy for the North East sector of Greater Manchester that will link to the locality plans for health and social care which are being developed in each of the localities of Bury, Rochdale, and Oldham boroughs and North Manchester. This work is being undertaken with the Trust’s four local NHS Clinical Commission Groups and Local Authorities.

The Trust’s Clinical Services Strategy, together with its Investment Plan, will describe how the Trust can move from a position of stabilising services to one of transforming services and becoming clinically and financially sustainable in the longer term.