Town Hall leaders have demanded the immediate resignation of the men in charge of Rochdale Infirmary.
Council leader Councillor Colin Lambert has penned a strongly worded letter to NHS North calling the chief executive and chairman of Pennine Acute Trust (PAT) – which runs the Infirmary – to step down.
The letter has also won provisional support from the leaders of the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.
It comes after councillors passed a motion of no confidence in PAT chief executive John Saxby, chairman John Jesky and the senior management team for the way they were implementing the Healthy Futures programme which has seen the Infirmary lose its maternity and accident and emergency department.
Coun Lambert said: "We have constantly demanded changes at PAT, and as yet, we have seen no improvement in services and no suggestion they are taking our concerns seriously. If anything, things have got worse in recent months.
"We have no confidence in their ability to lead a recovery and that the only solution open to us now is to call for a specialist team to be brought in with a proven track record of turning around the hospital's performance."
Bosses have also been criticised for spending £2.5m on management consultants at the same time they are cut their budget by £52m, as revealed in last Wednesday's Observer, as well as failing to see enough patients within the 18-week target set by the government.
A spokesperson for the Trust said: "We have seen many changes to our services across all our hospitals, particularly over the past two years.
"Our doctors, nurses and midwives have led these changes to make sure they can continue to provide safe and high quality care to our patients."
They added that the changes under Healthy Futures and the Making It Better schemes were almost complete and that the Infirmary continued to provide many services for patients.
They said: "The whole public sector, including the NHS and local councils, are facing huge financial challenges.
"We, like other hospital trusts, are not immune to this. Nationally the NHS needs to save £20bn by 2015. This financial year we had save £43m and we have found £41m of that so far, all without affecting the quality of care we provide.
"On top of this, however, our local PCT who pay us for our services, are sending less patients to the Trust this year for certain planned outpatient and surgical procedures. We therefore need to reduce our budget by that amount – which is a further £21m."
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Is not this call a little late in the day. We should have been seeing these types of reports before our hospitals had been stripped, and our Courts decimated.
On the other hand, are these cries heard because elect ions are only three months away?
"This financial year we had save £43m and we have found £41m of that so far, all without affecting the quality of care we provide"
Rubbish. How can the removal of our A&E and maternity services not effect the quality of care. Popping your clogs or giving birth in the back of an ambulance is hardly the same amount of care as you would have got had you not had to be taken on a long road trip to Oldham.
Astounded by Lamblerts comments:
"We have no confidence in their ability to lead a recovery and that the only solution open to us now is to call for a specialist team to be brought in with a proven track record of turning around the hospital's performance."
Replace 'the hospital's' with 'Rochdale' and you can say the same about him. It's ridiculous that he's got the nerve to say this, whilst it might be correct, he needs to take a look closer to home about the continued slide of the town into the national gutter.
The only export Rochdale has now is for dosers to pocket some cash on Jeremy Kyle. It's a hotbed for asylum seekers, drugs, child grooming by gangs.
Pull all the resources from these seedy wards across the borough and force people to move out, thats what we need now, hard action. Unpopular maybe but good for the borough. Lamblert and Dumbzuk should step down, useless the pair of them.
Lets not wast our time. Rochdale is a dead town. No one is interested and particularly now not a Tory Government. (Not that labour were too interested either).
Sad but true, but the town is an embarasment to the UK and no one knows what to do with it - ignore it - it may go away!
The healthy futures programme was devised to put services which were situated on multiple sites under one roof. As this was implemented, staff reluctant or unable to travel left the trust which saves on the wage bill.The next step was to close down wards/departments on sites that are not economically viable to keep open,saving more money in heating,lighting and security bills.The scene is set for the end product of running two large hospitals instead of five (including Birch Hill). If the health chiefs resign they will walk away with a very nice pay off and a golden handshake! If they are to save money in my opinion this would not be the correct action. It's happening up and down the country initiated by the past government to pay for their indulgence in poor policies and the present coalition are unable to stop this train!!
Rochdale is NOT a dead town.
The hospital management are useless and only think of themselves.
If the management knew their jobs, the trust would not be in the financial mess.
All Rochdalians will suffer because the useless trust management.
Well done Colin calling the Chairman and CEO to book this has been long over due for years, your just picking up the tail end of the mess that has been left to fester in Rochdale for years.
Good to see also that you have got cross party support
Bravo! A strongly worded letter will do the trick.
Why does the PAT just not admit that the longterm aim is to have fewer but more so called centralised Hospitals? This covert operation has been going on for years and years. Just think of all the hospitals that have gone over the last 30 years. To mention a few The Northern ,Ancoats,Oldham Royal,Monsall,Jewish,Booth Hall,Prestwich etc. etc.
Much of it is just about cost and where consultants wish to work and nothing to do with community needs.