Heart and stroke consultation prompts over 1,700 responses

The Healthy Futures consultation into the future of heart and stroke services in the North East sector of Greater Manchester has received over 1,700 responses, 616 from residents across the Rochdale borough.

The consultation over services received by patients in Rochdale, Bury, Oldham, North Manchester and parts of Rossendale, particularly Whitworth and Bacup, concluded last month.

The next step in the consultation process will see the Healthy Futures Joint Committee for Public Consultation meet on Monday (20 February) to consider the responses.

A final decision will be made by the Joint Committee for Public Consultation at a meeting held in public on 12 March.

371 responses were received from East Lancashire (namely Rossendale, Bacup, Whitworth, Accrington and Blackburn), 255 from Oldham, 221 from Bury, and the remainder from Manchester, Salford and Trafford.

Healthy Futures bosses say that in total, more than 2,213 people were engaged with face to face during the consultation by a variety of methods including public meetings, roadshows, focus groups and community meetings.

Six public meetings were held across in Rochdale, Oldham, Bury, North Manchester and Whitworth with an overall attendance of 182 people.

Keith Wright, Chairman of the Healthy Futures Joint Committee for Public Consultation, said: “We’d like to thank everyone who took the time and effort to complete a questionnaire and share their thoughts and views with us about the heart and stroke proposals.

"We have endeavoured to make the consultation process as open, transparent and meaningful as possible and will now be collating all the responses to help inform the final decision.”

Throughout the consultation more than 100,000 consultation documents were distributed to an array of locations including homes, libraries, medical centres, pharmacies and community centres.

For more details of the decision making process visit www.healthyfutures.nhs.uk or call 0161 655 7422 or email healthy-futures@hmr.nhs.uk