Infirmary A&E decision controversy - stitch up?

Councillor Jean Ashworth, an employee with 30 years service at Rochdale Infirmary, has voiced her bitter disappointment at the decision made by Pennine NHS Trust to axe A&E services at the Infirmary and 'downgrade' the hospital to a 'Locality Hospital', she said: "I am angry and really upset by today's results as I really believed they genuinely had listened to our concerns in Rochdale, how wrong could I have been?"

Councillor Ashworth called the consultation a "damn farce", her suspicions fueled further that the decision had been taken prior to the meeting and the consultations by the fact then when she returned home for today's meeting, a meeting the Trust insisted had not made any pre-determined decision, in her email box, with a time of 7.30pm, was a press release (below)  outlining all the decisions that had been taken at the meeting. Councillor Ashworth said: "how come this full report was in my email box at 19.30 pm when as they say 'no pre-decision' had been made? The decision wasn't announced until 18.30! This looks like a statement ready for press long before the final outcome!"

--------------------------------------------------------

PRESS RELEASE       
14 September 2006

NORTH EAST GETS GO AHEAD FOR IMPROVED HEALTH CARE

A provisional decision outlining the future shape of adult health care in the north east of Greater Manchester has been reached today.

The Joint Committee of Primary Care Trusts, representing the six primary care trusts involved in the Healthy Futures programme, met and decided that option one from the public consultation should be adopted for the delivery of health care in the north east of Greater Manchester. The Joint Committee also agreed a specific caveat relating to surgery and anaesthetics at Fairfield General Hospital, Bury, details of which are below.

The implementation of option one will improve the provision of health care for 800,000 people living in Bury, Heywood and Middleton, Rochdale, Oldham, North Manchester and the Rossendale area.

Under the new arrangements:

• Fairfield General Hospital, North Manchester General Hospital and The Royal Oldham Hospital will provide acute medicine and accident and emergency services.
• Emergency surgery will be provided at North Manchester General Hospital and the Royal Oldham Hospital.
• Rochdale Infirmary will become one of the country’s first locality hospitals. A unique type of facility offering a range of hospital services not usually provided from a single location including, dental services, mental health services and social services. The infirmary will also have an urgent care centre, which will treat 85% of people currently seen at accident and emergency.
• The Joint Committee agreed that access to a surgical opinion will be available 24/7 on the Fairfield Hospital site, Bury; and decided that further work needed to be done to ensure appropriate senior anaesthetic cover at the Fairfield Hospital site.

Under the chosen option the people of the north east of Greater Manchester will also benefit from each of the four hospital sites, North Manchester General, Fairfield Hospital, Royal Oldham and Rochdale Infirmary, becoming centres of excellence for some inpatient services rather than spreading staff, skills and equipment too thinly over too many sites. Rochdale Infirmary will become a centre of excellence for cardiology care and will continue to take many acute medical patients referred to the hospital. Other hospitals will also become centres of excellence for particular conditions with the Royal Oldham Hospital becoming a centre of excellence for cancer.

To further improve the area’s health care, 35 new community health centres will be built in the north east. The centres; six in Bury; four in Heywood and Middleton; seven in North Manchester; eight in Oldham and ten in Rochdale, will bring a wide range of services under one roof including physiotherapy, dental surgeries and community pharmacists. The aim is to move many hospital services into the community, allowing people to easily access health care and preventing unnecessary admissions to hospital.

Option one was chosen as the preferred option of the Healthy Futures review programme prior to the public consultation, as it scored higher than other options when compared against a range of criteria including, patient safety, number of beds, demographic factors and travel times. The programme team felt that option one would best meet the criteria for maintaining and developing hospital services and patient care.

In order to reach their decision the members of the JCPCT considered the results of the public consultation and a host of supplementary information on each of the options for change.

Today’s decision is provisional as a final decision cannot be made until the conclusion of the Making it Better consultation in December. The decisions of each must be compatible, as some services that will change under Healthy Futures will need to be co-located with children’s or maternity services. For example, an orthopaedic unit, which may need to set the broken leg of a young child who requires an overnight stay, will also need to have on site, inpatient paediatric provision.

Tim Presswood, Chair of the Healthy Future’s Joint Committee said: “The Joint Committee’s provisional decision is a crucial step towards improving the way that health care is provided for the people of the north east of Greater Manchester.

“Throughout the Healthy Futures review programme local people have taken a real interest in the proposed changes and expressed passion for their local health care. This has been encouraging to see and as we move forward, we want to ensure that people continue to have an active role in our planning work. Changes will take time to implement but patients will be fully involved in the planning process every step of the way.

“Planned change has to happen. Allowing services to continue the way that they are currently structured is not an option as all services are facing great pressure. Our public consultation has shown that most people understand the need for change but we recognise that any change bring about uncertainty and concern. From the beginning, the Healthy Futures programme has been led by health care professionals who know that services are currently spread too thinly across four hospital sites and acknowledge that more services need to be available outside hospitals. The people of the north east area deserve the best health care, delivered in the safest and most effective way and implementing the provisional decision will ensure people always get the right care, at the right time, in the right place, from health professionals with the right skills.

Change will not happen overnight and we estimate that it will take at least five years for all the changes to come into effect. Whilst we await the outcome of the Making it Better consultation we will now begin planning to change services that are not dependant on this decision.”

Ends

For further information please contact Maggie Doyle, Healthy Futures Communications Manager on 0161 655 1461 or maggie.doyle@hmpct.nhs.uk

Notes to Editors:

A media briefing on the Healthy Futures decision will be held at 9.15am on Friday 15 September 2006, at the The Ivy Suite, Lancashire Health and Racquet Club, Heywood Old Road, Middleton, Manchester, M24 4TH.