Range of surgeries banned to help save money

Patients across the borough will be unable to undergo a range of surgeries until April – as part of a bid by the NHS to save money.

The North East sector joint Primary Care Trust (PCT) which covers Heywood, Middleton, Rochdale, Bury and Oldham is currently spending £20 million a year more than it receives.

Demand for NHS services is continually rising and as part of a bid to deal with both the long and short term requirements to save money a decision has been made to stop a wide range of procedures - some procedures will be referred to the North East Sector Effective Use of Resources (EUR) panel for approval.

The full list of surgeries which will be stopped is still not known. Rochdale Online has contacted the North East sector joint Trust on numerous occasions but a list has not been provided.

Rochdale Online understands that knee and hip surgeries will be amongst those put on hold.

A spokesperson for the North East sector, said: “We appreciate this might seem harsh, but many procedures carried out today are not always urgent.

“The EUR panel reviews all referrals under a strict process and criteria. If the panel believes a patient requires a procedure urgently, the panel will approve.

“In some cases, the panel may deem a request as non-urgent and defer such cases for a later date.

“In some cases, the panel will disallow referrals that do not meet the set criteria.”

The EUR Panel is also working on the long-term requirements of patients to ensure people receive the treatment required at an appropriate time.

The panel is reviewing the clinical values of a number of procedures, where the panel deem the benefit of a procedure to be extremely low; such procedures will cease unless there is an exceptional case where the health and well-being of the patient is an urgent priority.

The EUR Panel says it fully appreciates that not everybody would agree with its decisions, so to enable the patients’ voice to be heard, the EUR Panel has a clear appeals procedure to allow patients to appeal the decision made if they feel the decision to be unfair.