Packed meeting voices deep concern over hospital's future

Pennine Acute Trust NHS Logo

Over 150 people packed into the Town Hall committee rooms for a 'Friends of Our Hospital' public meeting last night (Thursday 17 November), to air their concerns over the future of services at Rochdale Infirmary.

The meeting had been called to address public concern over the future of Rochdale Infirmary and the planned reconfiguration of services throughout the four Pennine Trust hospitals. Of particular concern was the possibility of services such as Accident and Emergency and Paediatric services being moved to Oldham and North Manchester.

Father Neary of the 'Friends of Our Hospital' chaired the meeting and was flanked by vice-chairman Paul Rowen MP, and Secretary Cllr Jean Ashworth. In attendance on behalf of the Pennine Trust were Director of Strategic Planning Tom Wilders and Assistant Medical Director for Rochdale and Bury, Dr Mike Finnegan.

Chris Appleby, Chief Executive and Steven Price Chairman of The Pennine Acute Hospitals Trust, of which Rochdale Infirmary is a part, were invited but could not attend due to being at a meeting to decide what options should go forward for public consultation on Pennine's future being held at the same time.

Tom Wilders gave a presentation outlining the steps the Trust had taken to date, which included issuing a document in January 2005 that was delivered via free newspapers to households asking for public opinion. A further document based on the feedback gained, entitled 'Healthy Futures' went out in July 2005.

The current stage he said is the different options available are being discussed. It had been hoped these would go out to public consultation on 7 December, however, Trevor Purt, chairman of Rochdale Primary Care Trust joined the meeting direct from one of the management meetings being held to decide the options to be put out for consultation with the news that a decision has been deferred and therefore the options will not now go out for public consultation until January.

The consultation period will be for three months and Mr Wilder stressed that it is a genuine opportunity for the public to influence the decision making process. He explained the Trust see a real need to make changes in order to deliver a better service by developing centres of excellence. There would be over £100 million invested and 35 new community based centres set up whose primary aim would be to prevent people having to go into hospital. Known as NHS LIFT - the aim is to develop a new market for investment in primary care and community-based facilities and services.

The new community based management would facilitate a realignment of services in the four hospitals to make them what he termed "Locality Hospitals" which would not have all specialisms on site, although the aim would be to retain as many services on each site as possible.

Following Mr Wilder's presentation the chairman opened questions to the floor and Sir Cyril Smith was the first of many to air deep concern at the proposals. He criticised the "spin" which he said would be "worthy of Tony Blair" and expressed his concern that the impact on patients and patient’s families would be detrimental. Sir Cyril said: "Visitors play an important part in patient care, a psychological one, and patient care will be affected not only with the difficulty of patients getting to and from hospital, but also patients visitors." He continued to warm applause: "the proposals are centred on the needs of doctors and management and do not take account of patients needs." He also raised the question of costs, particularly of money spent on transport between the hospitals, having to rise.

A number of other people expanded on the potential transport problems, including the Chairwoman of Rochdale Primary Care Trust Forum, Christine Arrowsmith. Ms Arrowsmith said: "I would like to believe no decision has yet been made, but I am a cynic and do not believe what we are being told. Transport is a major problem, patients and visitors cannot afford taxi's and the bus service is either non-existent or poor."

Mr Wilders, in response, said that consultations were ongoing with GMPTE to address the problem of poor public transport, but it was pointed out to him that it is the bus companies, and not GMPTE, who decide where and when busses run.

The other major concern voiced very strongly by a number of people was the potential closing down of the Accident and Emergency Unit at the Infirmary. In reply Dr Mike Finnegan said: "Acute services are still being consulted on."

Mr Wilder added: "Meetings to decide what options should go forward for public consultation are still ongoing". He explained that if the scenario causing concern was one of the options put forward then A & E at the Infirmary would not be closed down, it would take only the less acute cases (around 80% of current cases) and the other 20% of more serious cases, such as heart attacks, would go to other hospitals.

Paul Rowen spoke about the recent Alberti report that he said included a "damning" critique of the management style adopted by the Trust's senior management and reminded Mr Wilders that Professor Alberti had recommended that senior management should "reflect" on their positions. He pointed out that in layman’s terms this meant, "they should resign, and they should do so sooner rather than later".

Mr Rowen also put across passionately his belief that the money that will be forthcoming from the sale of the Birch Hill site next year belongs to Rochdale and should be reinvested here. He explained that when it was agreed services from Birch Hill would be transferred to the Infirmary that it was with the intention always that there would be a phase two building. He said: "The next three months is going to be critical and the Rochdale public need to demonstrate their strength of feeling against services being stripped from the Infirmary. The Trust management have to be accountable." He added: "as the town's MP I will do all I can to ensure services remain at the Infirmary, but I need the help of the Rochdale public."

Trevor Purt, Chairman of Rochdale PCT, welcomed what Paul Rowen had to say about the money from the sale of Birch Hill being invested in Rochdale and he would be doing all he could to ensure this happened. He did, however, take issue with Mr Rowen's belief that the Infirmary was to be downgraded to a "community hospital" and said that the Infirmary would still have a lot of services that would make it much more than a community hospital. The aim he said was to make more use of community based health management to prevent the need for hospitalisation in the first place.

Tom Wilders explained that no decision had yet been made on where the money from the future sale of the Birch Hill site would be spent.

Cllr Jean Ashworth, who has worked for the NHS for over 28 years, summed up the feelings of staff and patients when she said that morale was at rock bottom and she could not wait to retire in three years time. She said: "I never believed I would not want to work in the NHS, but the present management have no regard for staff and over 40 members of staff from the children's unit have left in the past two years as a result."

Mr Wilders assured Cllr Ashworth and those present that the management do care, but found communication and visibility difficult with four sites to oversee.

In closing the meeting, Chairman Father Neary expressed his thanks at the large turnout and urged more people to come forward as Friends of Our Hospital committee members. He can be contacted on (01706) 378261.

After the meeting, Pete Hinchliffe, Unison Branch Secretary said: “It was very clear from the meeting that local people want local services.” He added: “Whilst they accept that they may have to travel for specialist treatment, they feel that core services such as A & E, midwifery, paediatrics, general surgery and general medicine should be accessible at their local hospital. It was clear that they have no confidence in Health Service managers or in the consultation process. They were ‘sold a pup’ with the acute trust merger and now they feel that they are about to be receive another member from the same litter.”  

“Only the extremely reckless and foolhardy would dream of pressing ahead in the teeth of such opposition. This meeting was attended by local politicians, patients, members of staff and trade unionists. All expressed major reservations about the consultation and there was a general feeling that it was a ‘done deal’.

“As a trade union, we are concerned that any downgrading of the Infirmary will result in a skills drain to other parts of the Trust. This has to be bad for patients and for the recruitment and retention of a workforce that is already feeling very let down and increasingly demoralised.”