Casualty departments in three Greater Manchester hospitals will not be axed without public consultation, health chiefs have promised.
We yesterday revealed plans to shut three of the four A&E departments run by Pennine Acute.
Rochdale Infirmary, North Manchester General and Fairfield Hospital are most likely to lose out – with a new ‘super-site’ for emergency medicine and surgery in Oldham.
The proposals have shocked politicians, patient groups and health insiders.
They were made after the National Clinical Advisory Team looked at local plans for a £38m shake-up of health services in the area – and ruled they did not go far enough.
The original proposal included downgrading A&E at Rochdale and stopping emergency surgery at Fairfield in Bury by 2012.
At the board meeting of NHS North West yesterday, chief executive Mike Farrar said the public would be asked for their views before any decisions were made.
He said: “The principle is to make sure as many people can get urgent care at a level that is safe and appropriate as close to their homes as possible.”
A spokesman for Pennine Acute said the need for a review was ‘stronger and more urgent’ than when the original decisions were made four years ago.
He said: “Our primary aim is to make sure that the plans that have already been agreed are implemented and we will do this first before considering any further changes.”
As well as the A&E change at Rochdale and halting emergency surgery at Fairfield, Healthy Futures concluded that vascular surgery be centralised at Oldham, while general surgery take place at Oldham and North Manchester.
Other planned surgery is expected to continue at all four hospitals.
In August Pennine Acute bosses closed the A&E at Rochdale Infirmary between 6pm and 8am, saying a staffing crisis made it unsafe.
There has been huge investment in the Royal Oldham in the last year, with a new £17m radiotherapy unit, £9m vascular surgery unit and £6 million haematology unit all opening – £44m for a women and children’s unit was confirmed during last month’s spending review.
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I note that the investments in Royal oldham dont mention investment in the A&E. Also, by taking the A&E patients between 6PM and 8PM they are making the staff at Royal Oldham moe likely to be subjected to assaults and abuse from drunken patients and visitors. These closures will therefore have a wider impact on services such as the police and ambulance service. For instance, if a drunk arrestee from North Manchester requires hospital treatment, then officers from that area will have to take him all the way to Oldham for treatemtn, and wait with him there. I wonder if any impact analysis will have looked at secondary effects or the impact on other services!
These closures will have wider implications than are presented here. For instance, by closing these hospitals, they are putting extra strain on the police. The staff at Oldham A&E will be subject to more violence and harassment as they are dealing with drunk patients overnight from a widder area, and those patients will be more aggressive because they have had to travel (or been taken) further from home for treatment. This will create an increasing demand for Oldham police to be at the hospital. Also, arrestees from other areas who need treatement will have to be taken all the way to Oldham, so drawing police resources in the North Manchester, Rochdale and Fairfield areas away for longer. i wonder if the National Clinical Advisory Team looked at those sorts of secondary impacts in any assessment they did.
ha ha thats a laf. Sure they will listen but it wont make the slighest bit of difference to what they are going to close Rochdale North Manchester and faifield will all go as they have said.They are not interested in what the pubic say or thier concerns its all about saving money And more clip board managers recruited at Oldham.Anyone like to put money on it reply to me will give you exact odds you want at any price you want because im right. REMEMBER WITHINGTON HOSPITAL IN THE 90s
This sounds like a consultation where the decision has already been made. Yes they'll consult, but then they'll ignore any opposition to closures.
Heaven help us.
This will kill people but will we ever fully know given that the statistics will be collated by friendly types with an eye on spin rather than public service.
There should be an A&E unit on Kingsway Business Park beside the M62. It could serve Rochdale, Oldham and North Manchester via the motorway (blue light access via the hard shoulder).
Years ago there was talk of a hospital on Kingsway but it was very quickly killed given that the seniour regeneration executives wanted 7500 "high quality jobs" for the 350 hectare site. As a result of bugling, short sigted incompetance we now have most of Birch Hill closed and sold off to a house developer. In addition, we have also seen our landlocked Infirmary downgraded.
Sheer genius. These senior executive muppets at RMBC and RDA are on fat salaries (well over £100k plus benefits plus lucrative pensions). And is the PCT/NHS boss, a former Rochdale Council Town Clerk going to argue with his former buddies?
It is all connected and it all stinks. An accident waiting to happen - and now without proper A&E provsion.
Listen. Listening is cheap, especially when they do not act.
The A and E departments in Fairfield, Rochdale and North Manchester are already very busy. If they are closed then will local people do to for emergency assistance. Oldham is too far away and on busy roads. It is recipe of disaster for towns like Rochdale and Bury.
no matter what anyone says about the closures...they will go ahead with them. its been on the cards for many years. they say it will be trial.. then in a few years, no one will be able to walk into a&e. you will have to be refered from your g.p. or a drop in centre. the doors will be shut. regarding withington and wythenshawe, i went to all the public meetings regarding which one would close. withington had to go. the land withington hosp stood on was worth more money than the land wythenshawe had... its a sorry day for OUR hospitals.
So tonight it has been announced that it is ALL to go by April.
No A & E
No Intensive Care
No Coronary Care Unit
No Maternity
Nothing
Oh, but we will have 24 hour day surgery.DON'T be fooled. That is small minor jobs
that can be done in a few minutes.BUT the bean counters say that you can have it
done at any time.
AND IF IT GOES WRONG
Tuff luck.
If you live in an outlying area you may as well be dead.
Blue light from Whitworth. Sure.
Rochdale MBC has a population of 250,000 and no hospital.
And please do not forget about the staff whose contracts are all being downgraded.
So if you are looking at your pension it has just been thrown in the bin.
Tried to visit at Oldham. IMPOSSIBLE
In a supposed 'green' society ,how many miles will be expended by having to get
to Oldham.
The Infirmary was never constructed to the size that it was originally planned to be.
Somebody in Whitehall 10-15 years ago had already planned this
There is no justification for the closure of all the services. And as for consultation
please do not insult our intelligence.Just shut it now and be away when the death rises.
As if you give a STUFF about the people of North Manchester.
Where is our most silent MP.? What could he do anyway apart from another photo in
the Ob and a load of bluster.Question in the House or is that beyond his ability.You voted
for him now see what you have got.
It is up to all of us to write to their MP and make their life miserable untill they do something
about this.
Bury to Fairfield 5 minutes Bury to Royal Oldham 20 minutes
Rochdale to RochdaIe Infirmary 5 minutes Rochdale to Royal Oldham 18 minutes
Manchester to NMGH 8 minutes Manchester to Royal Oldham 27 minutes
Better pray your loved ones do not need the services of an A+E department quickly if any of these closures go ahead. (unless Pennine Acute are gonna employ huey pilots as in M*A*S*H)
So, they are thinking of closing North Manchester A&E which is easy to get to by half of Manchester people to move the A&E to Oldham which only accessible by Oldham residents?
The mind boggles.
i live in shawclough rochdale, several years ago i sufferd a brain haemmorage at the time the paramedics diddent know what was wrong but knew it was serious, it took only a few minutes to get me to the infirmary at rochdale? once i was admitted i was taken straight through to the high dependency ward where after a lumbar punch discoverd i,d had a bleed on the brain, my family were given 24 hour visiting rights because i was very ill and not expected to survive? , it took a week before i could be moved to hope hospital for surgery, in that time was critical whether i lived or died if it wasent for the a and e, at rochdale i would have been taken to a hospital elsewhere, the difference getting medical help on my doorstep or getting medical help in another borough{ life or death}if at the time all this was in place and i died because of the longer distance in an ambulane who would have been responsible, certanley not my family who would have to have lived with it. think again. i am mr j dolan survivour of a sub arrachnoid brain haemmorage
Type your comment here... its about time that they thought about the public not every one has cars and the public transport is rubbish when either having visitors when you are in hospital or going to see someone in hospital is a big enough ordeal for people with out cars people from heywood and some surrounding areas have to catch two or three buses to get there so there for what should take half an hour to get there often taking two or three hours.
looks like the public consultation last year was a sucess as the closure is to be brought foward 1 year!
Please KEEP our hospital in Rochdale. Nurses are looking for jobs already because they have bills to pay. Please stop taking jobs away from Rochdale people. Rochdale is a BIG town with even a sixth form college,why take vital services away. Scrap the tram service which is not needed and save our hospital.It will take an hour to get to Manchester on the tram and it only takes 15 mins on the train.Is the tram being implemented only to get people to Oldham
for hospitals and shopping etc. The whole thing is a sham. This town will soon be a ghost town and the people making decisions don't even live here. Birch Hill was a better site and a nicer rural location to attract staff. Why was it closed in the first place? The new proposed hospitals that Rochdale people are to use are too far away.