'Impressed' with Trust's new cardiology unit at Fairfield General

Dr Tim Gray, consultant cardiologist

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Members of a local charity and patient support group have seen first hand the brand new facilities for cardiac patients, recently opened at Fairfield General Hospital in Bury.

Rochdale Heartbeat, which has supported the coronary care unit at Rochdale Infirmary for 25 years, was invited to meet staff and view the purpose-built high tech cardiology unit, which opened at Fairfield at the beginning of August.

The group was given a special tour of the unit and heard a presentation by Dr Tim Gray, consultant cardiologist, at The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust.

Sue Ridgard from Rochdale Heartbeat, said: “Our group was set up 25 years ago to support cardiac patients and their families in Rochdale. We provide morale support to patients and their families and so were very interested to see the new facilities at Fairfield General Hospital.

“We were really impressed with the new unit and enjoyed the chance to meet the staff and have the various procedures and equipment that is used explained to us. Every member of Heartbeat is a former cardiac patient and so we are very passionate about continuing to support cardiology services. The visit to the new unit, which has seen services transfer from Rochdale Infirmary, has given us confidence that the move of the Silver Heart Unit to Bury was the right decision and we are confident that the integrated unit will offer improved patient care.”

Jeanette Broome, Silver Heart Unit manager, said: “We would like to formally thank Rochdale Heartbeat for their continued support and past fundraising for the Trust and our patients during their 25 year history. They are determined to continue fundraising for the new unit at Fairfield and we cannot wait to help them do this. The staff on the unit really enjoyed their visit to us, and we are looking forward to working together to ensure that future fundraising events are a success.”

The new cardiology service at Fairfield General Hospital treats patients with coronary heart disease and complex heart problems, and has received around £2 million of investment, including two new state-of-the-art cardiac catheterisation labs.

The Silver Heart Unit at Fairfield provides a range of complex diagnostic and enhanced specialist interventional cardiology procedures for patients from Bury, Oldham, North Manchester, Rochdale borough and parts of East Lancashire.

The new unit is supported by a new 28 bed Integrated Cardiology Unit which comprises two cardiology wards for acutely ill and high dependency patients and the for general cardiology inpatient and day case patients. The unit is expected to treat thousands of patients a year, including around 2,000 angiography, 550 Percutaneous Coronary Interventions and 450 implantable pacemaker devices.

The Silver Heart Unit has transferred from Rochdale Infirmary to Fairfield General Hospital as part of the redesign and improvements to cardiology and Stroke services across the North East part of Greater Manchester.

Following a review of cardiology services across Greater Manchester in 2011, doctors agreed that it was not possible to sustain specialist and complex interventional cardiology services safely at Rochdale Infirmary in the absence of acute medical services such as critical care services and anaesthetics.

Rochdale Infirmary continues to have a consultant cardiologist present on the site everyday Monday to Friday and provides a full range of outpatient cardiology services for patients. The majority of cardiology outpatient services, including diagnostic and follow-up and specialist clinics, will be provided at Rochdale where patients will see either a consultant or nurse specialists.

Outpatient services provided at Rochdale Infirmary include:

Rapid Access Chest Pain clinics, including Exercise Tolerance Testing
New and follow-up general cardiology outpatient clinics
Simple pacemaker follow-up clinics
Heart failure nurse specialist clinics
Direct GP Access Cardio-Respiratory diagnostics
Echocardiography and 24 hour ECG
Ambulatory Monitoring