Staff and volunteers thanked at Pennine Acute Trust Annual Public Meeting

John Jesky, Chairman PAHT

Hospital staff and the Trust’s army of 1,000 volunteers were thanked at The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust’s tenth Annual Public Meeting, held on Thursday (26 July).

The Trust’s Annual Report and Financial Accounts 2011/12 were formally adopted at the meeting.

The Trust is one of the largest in the North West and one of the largest non-teaching hospitals in England.

It employs 9,000 staff and provides general and specialist hospital services to around 850,000 people across the north east of Greater Manchester in Bury, Prestwich, North Manchester, Middleton, Heywood, Oldham, Rochdale borough and parts of East Lancashire.

The Trust runs North Manchester General Hospital, The Royal Oldham Hospital, Fairfield General Hospital in Bury and Rochdale Infirmary, along with services at Birch Hill Hospital and also provides community services for North Manchester.

In 2011/12 the Trust spent over half a billion pounds (about £1.5m per day) on providing healthcare services for local people. It spent £36 million on capital programmes and in maintaining and improving the physical estate and on smaller projects to develop front line clinical services.

The Trust saw over 317,000 accident and emergency cases, 702,000 outpatients, 215,000 total inpatients, 76,000 day cases, and delivered over 10,000 babies. In addition, the Trust’s community staff made 112,000 visits to patients in their homes.

The Trust’s Chairman, John Jesky, took the opportunity to praise and thank staff and volunteers for their commitment and valuable contribution.

He said: “I was pleased to host two receptions in the last month to thank our 1,000 volunteers for the vital role they perform to a very high standard across many wards and departments. I know how much they are appreciated by our staff and our patients and how much the Trust Board appreciates what they do.

“And to all of our staff, I would like to give my personal thanks for the work you do every day throughout the year; for the commitment you have shown and for the tireless endeavours to improve the services and care we provide.

“Our Quality Account, now in its third year and printed within our Annual Report, lists how we have continued to reduce hospital mortality, reduced the number of hospital acquired infections and made continual improvements in how we care for our patients.”

Looking to the future, he added: “Joined up working, reducing hospital length of stay, providing more care closer to people’s homes, providing care on a day and ambulatory basis, and avoiding the need for people to be admitted to hospital unless clinically necessary will be our touchstones for the coming year. That will improve our services to patients, but it will also provide those services more efficiently. The years ahead will be about providing the care that people need in new, different and improved ways.

“In the coming year we will also work tirelessly to improve the care we provide to patients with dementia, to understand better their particular needs and to recognise and value the important and knowledgeable role that their carers play in their lives. By improving care for this vulnerable group of patients we will also improve care for our patients as a whole.”