The Stockport NHS Foundation Trust is appealing to residents to take part in a consultation and support the Stockport hospital’s bid to become a ‘specialist hospital’ and avoid patients being taken to Manchester for emergency surgery.
Emergency and high risk surgery is currently undertaken at ten hospitals across Greater Manchester – including Stepping Hill Hospital – but under the ‘Healthier Together’ initiative it is being proposed that emergency and high risk surgery is centralised within four or five ‘specialist hospitals’ which could see patients from the Stockport area being treated at Wythenshawe hospital in south Manchester.
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.
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 which may not be possible for patients being brought from the outlying SK postcode regions of the High Peak and East Cheshire.
Dr James Catania, medical director of the trust said:
“It is essential that local people respond to the Healthier Together consultation and make their voice heard.
“Stepping Hill needs to be a specialist hospital to ensure that we can continue providing the very highest level of emergency surgery.
“Specialist hospital status would not only ensure people in the High Peak had a nearby hospital able to provide high-level emergency care, but it would continue to allow us to develop our other high quality surgical services.
“We have a strong track record and we believe our location makes it critical we do not lose emergency services. But we need the public’s support. This is a public consultation and local people need to speak up about this.
“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.
“We are concerned that our 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. We 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.”
The consultation is running for 12 weeks until 28th September 2014.
Stockport NHS Trust is urging residents in the area served by Stepping Hill to:
1: Please complete the Healthier Together questionnaire, which is asking people to choose which hospitals they think should become a specialist, via their website www.healthiertogethergm.nhs.uk/feedback.
We believe the strongest options, in respect of services which should be at Stepping Hill Hospital, are options: 5.1 or 5.4.
2: Please attend the public event in the area you live to give your views:
- Tuesday 22nd July, 10am to 1.30pm, New Mills Town Hall, Spring Bank, New Mills High Peak, SK22 4AT
- Tuesday 12th August, 2.00pm to 5.30pm, Alma Lodge Hotel, Buxton Road, Stockport SK2 6EL
- Thursday 14th August, 6.30pm to 10.00pm, Dukinfield Town Hall, King Street, Dukinfield, SK16 4LA