Healthy futures consultation ends

After four months of intensive engagement with the public, patients and staff including events, meetings, open days, presentations, a touring bus and roadshows, the Healthy Futures consultation concluded on Friday of last week.

The consultation proposals, which will have an impact on more than 800,000 people, focused on options to improve and modernise health services in the North East of Greater Manchester including Rochdale Infirmary, Fairfield Hospital in Bury, North Manchester General Hospital and The Royal Oldham Hospital.

Interest and participation in the consultation has been extremely high. Over a 17 weeks period which began on January 12th, 101,928 patients, public and staff attended 705 events in total. There have been almost 5,000 visitors to the website and 4,085 people have completed formal response forms. Three petitions relevant to the Rochdale, Bury and Heywood areas have collected 36,677 signatures in total.

This has all been supported by a print and radio campaign that reached 785,291 people, as well as the distribution of 340,000 documents, 5,000 posters and 900,000 coasters.

The consultation, a statutory requirement in accordance with sections 7 and 11 of the Health and Social Care Act involving thousands of people, has cost £655,000 to date.

All the feedback, responses, petitions and evidence will be independently analysed by the University of Salford.

They will then pass their findings onto the Joint Committee of Primary Care Trusts, a specially formed joint committee of the primary care trusts affected by this consultation – Rochdale and Bury, Heywood and Middleton, North Manchester, Oldham and Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale.

The Joint Committee of Primary Care Trusts will be responsible for making the final decision with the ultimate outcome expected  by September 2006 at the earliest.
Celia Gaze, Director of the Healthy Futures programme, says: “There has been a huge response to this consultation highlighting just how passionately people feel about their healthcare.
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“We are really pleased with the response and want to thank everyone who took the time to take part, whether that was attending a meeting, visiting the engagement bus and drop in sessions, attending presentations or completing response forms.”

John Williams, Greater Manchester Strategic Health Authority Project Director for Consultations, says: “This signals the end of a highly successful consultation phase. The process now focuses on the analysis of response and the ultimate decision making to be undertaken by the Joint Committee.

“This will be no easy task and will take some time.”

Total costs for Healthy Futures = £655,000