Stockport NHS Foundation Trust is seeking support for Stepping Hill Hospital to be awarded Specialist Centre status following a public consultation and review of health services in the Greater Manchester area.
Healthier Together is the name of a review of health services in Greater Manchester to look at the changes that need to be made to provide safe, quality care for people over the years ahead.
Stockport NHS Foundation Trust runs community health services in Stockport, Tameside and Glossop; part of the review has looked at improvements needed in GP and community based services.
Another part of the review is recommending that hospitals are re-organised for the future and a key question is whether hospitals will keep the full range of medical and surgical services which they currently provide.
Emergency and high risk surgery is currently undertaken at ten hospitals across Greater Manchester – including Stepping Hill Hospital. The Healthier Together public consultation is proposing that emergency and high risk surgery is centralised within four or five ‘specialist hospitals’.
The other hospitals would stay as ‘local hospitals’, carrying out day case and non-complex operations. They would also have an A&E service, but only for emergency cases where no surgery was needed.
A spokesperson for Stockport NHS Foundation said:
“We believe that Stepping Hill needs to be a specialist hospital to ensure that we can continue providing the very highest level of emergency surgery.
“We have a strong track record for providing high-quality clinical services. We believe that our location makes it critical we do not lose these emergency services.
“It is vital for our patients, especially those in more remote areas not served by easy or fast transport links, that there is a specialist hospital within a critical time distance.”
The Healthier Together travel standards state that everyone must be able to get to a specialist hospital within 45 minutes in an emergency ambulance, and via public transport to visit a patient in 75 minutes.
Stockport NHS Foundation Trust is concerned that patients in the High Peak, and those just over the boundaries in North Derbyshire and East Cheshire, would not be able to get to another specialist hospital within this time.
They also see Stepping Hill Hospital providing a vital point of access for patients in neighbouring areas, whose own local hospital may be reducing its emergency surgical services.
As a specialist hospital, the Stockport NHS Foundation Trust believe that they would be able to improve services even further and would also want to continue working in close partnership with nearby hospitals.
The consultation is running until 28th September 2014. Everyone has the opportunity to voice their opinion.
Those interested can complete the Healthier Together questionnaire via their website www.healthiertogethergm.nhs.uk/feedback.
The Trust believes the strongest options, in respect of services which should be at Stepping Hill Hospital, are options: 5.1 or 5.4.
The public are also able to attend the following events although events in New Mills and Stockport have already taken place:
- Thursday 14th August, 6.30pm – 10.00pm, Dukinfield Town Hall, King Street, Dukinfield SK16 4LA
- Monday 18th August, 7pm – 9pm, Round Table Hall, Market Street, Glossop Derbyshire SK13 8AR
- Thursday 4th September, 7 – 9pm at The Village Hotel & Leisure club, Cheadle Road, Cheadle, SK8 1HW
- Monday 15th September, 6pm – 8.30pm, Octagon, The Pavilion Gardens, Buxton SK17 6BE
- Wednesday 24th September, 5 – 7pm Cheshire Conference Centre, Edgelely Park, Hardcastle Rd, Stockport SK3 9DD
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