Hospital Trust staff vote a resounding 'No' on TIF bid

Rochdale Online can exclusively reveal that staff at Pennine Acute Hospital Trust, which runs Rochdale Infirmary, are united against the Transport Innovation Fund bid and the prospect of a congestion charge in central Manchester.

The Trust revealed the remarkable results of a staff consultation on the proposals at its AGM earlier this week. The results showed an astonishing 542 responses against the charge, which would be used to part-fund £3billion of public transport improvements in Greater Manchester, while just 21 voted in favour.

The Trust launched the consultation earlier this year after they acknowledged that, considering the differing impact on staff and patients across the hospitals run by the Trust, which also inlude Oldham General, Fairfield and North Manchester, they could not take a particular view on the proposals.

A Trust spokesman said: "The Board felt that the fairest thing to do was to run a poll for staff and make that our response. The paper we circulated made it clear that this in no way stopped any members of staff from giving their own views straight to the consultation, and we have very much encouraged this.

"In terms of our response, there isn't a 'Trust' view, simply what the staff who replied have said. We'll be formally responding to the consultation by writing a letter containing this information.

"We will also highlight some areas where we think there could be more clarity ahead of the referendum - for example, what does "regularly" mean when it comes to hospital appointments, which would have a 100% discount."