EXPERTS have reassured patients that the decision not to make the Royal Bolton a ‘super hospital’ will not mean closures at the hospital.

Jack Firth, Healthwatch Bolton’s independent chairman, said the result — revealed on Wednesday — was for the “greater good” and would benefit all patients across the region.

Under the Healthier Together plans Stepping Hill in Stockport will be the fourth ‘super hospital’ — joining Salford Royal, the Royal Oldham and Manchester Royal Infirmary.

The Royal Bolton, Wigan and Wythenshawe all launched bids to be the fourth centre but travel times for patients meant another site to the south of the region was needed.

Health chiefs said the changes will save 300 lives a year — and will only affect about three patients from Bolton a day.

Mr Firth said: “People were required to put their own feelings to one side, and we have got to accept this change for the greater good.

“If it was my relative who needed emergency surgery I would want them to go to the best place for their treatment – regardless of whether that was their closest hospital.

“The work starts now, and Healthwatch groups across Greater Manchester will be making sure the Healthier Together proposals are carried out how they should be.”

Wednesday’s decision means the Royal Bolton will now become a ‘local’ hospital but will be part of a linked ‘single site’ which will encompass Wigan and Salford and share staff.

Wigan’s hospital will also be a ‘local’ centre — with patients from both boroughs travelling to Salford Royal for high-risk emergency operations and stomach and bowel surgery.

Dr Jackie Bene, chief executive of Bolton NHS Foundation Trust, said the Royal Bolton would still have an A&E department and would remain a specialist centre for maternity and children’s services and bowel and breast cancer screenings.

But union chiefs at the Royal Bolton have criticised the decision — claiming it has been driven by cuts.

A spokesman for Unison’s Bolton health branch said: “Healthier Together is not a good thing — we believe it is about reducing the money to hospitals and making cuts.

“We have been told it will only affect a small number of Bolton patients, but no one knows at this stage what the full impact of the changes will be.

“It will mean staff, patients and visitors will be travelling further.

“Doctors will also be working seven days, despite Government plans to reduce antisocial hours pay for night shifts and Sundays and make Saturday a normal working day.

“Taking services away bit by bit is less likely to be noticed as shutting a hospital outright. Before they start closing hospital beds we should have the systems set up in the community.”

David Crausby, MP for Bolton North East, said: “I am disappointed in the sense that we always want the best for Bolton, but it is no shame on the team at the Royal Bolton.

“We have got to make the best of it, and make sure the hospital continues to deliver a good service.

“I will certainly be campaigning to make sure that public transport links with Salford Royal are adequate and well-publicised — if you are on public transport it can be very difficult to reach a hospital and we have to make sure this is as easy as possible.”

During Wednesday’s meeting Cllr John O’Brien, chairman of the Greater Manchester joint health scrutiny committee, criticised individual hospitals for “staking claims” to become specialist ‘super’ centres via media campaigns — as the Royal Bolton Hospital did.

Cllr O’Brien told the meeting: “This is for the good of Greater Manchester, and as long as we are providing the right coverage and treatment for all patients it is for the good of everyone.”

Afterwards, he added: “This is not about winners or losers. In this case, the best for everyone is to get them to a hospital which can treat them in the best possible way — even if it is not their ‘local’ hospital.

“All of the hospitals will gain extra staff — they will not lose staff.”

 

EXPLAINED: Travel plans

CONDITIONS have been put in place to prevent travel difficulties which could arise under the new plans.

Dr Wirin Bhatiani, Bolton CCG chairman, was also in charge of Healthier Together’s equalities advisory group. He was charged with considering the impacts of the changes on vulnerable groups.

Dr Bhatiani said it was clear the changes would have a “disproportionate” impact on those groups — with one key negative impact being longer and more complex journeys for patients, carers and their families.

The advisory group set out ten implementation conditions which health chiefs voted unanimously in favour of endorsing during Wednesday’s meeting.

These include providing priority car-parking facilities, extending volunteer driver schemes and better publicising community-transport and travel vouchers.

Health chiefs agreed to provide clear and regular transport and travel information for staff and patients, create travel-reimbursement or set-tariff policies for taxis and offer a choice of appointment times for elective care and flexible visiting times for families.

One of the aims of Healthier Together was that patients should be able to have emergency access to a super hospital within 45 minutes by car or ambulance.

CCG chiefs came to their decision to name Stockport the fourth super hospital because about 31,000 patients who live in east Cheshire and north Derbyshire but travel into Greater Manchester for hospital treatment would not meet the 45-minute target unless Stepping Hill was chosen.

Health bosses said 97 per cent of Greater Manchester’s population should be able to access their super hospital by public transport within 75 minutes.

 

EXPLAINED: Getting the best care

THE Healthier Together plans aim to ensure there will be specialist consultants ready to perform emergency operations 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

This is to prevent care delays — ultimately saving 300 lives a year, and improving the quality of life of countless others who can be treated more quickly and effectively.

Putting the ‘single site’ plans into practice will mean hiring 35 new consultants across the region.

But to have achieved the same standards at each of Greater Manchester’s 10 hospitals this figure would have been 99 — 70 general surgery consultants and 29 A&E specialists.

Under the plans, every hospital in Greater Manchester — including the Royal Bolton — will have more staff, including a consultant present in A&E for at least 12 hours a day every day.

There will also be a consultant present in every ‘local’ hospital’s medical ward at least 12 hours a day, seven days a week, and daily clinics at every site for assessments of patients with urgent general surgical problems.

Each ‘super hospital’ will have an A&E consultant present in A&E for at least 16 hours a day, seven days a week, consultant surgeons and anaesthetists available to perform emergency operations 24 hours a day and a consultant surgeon and consultant anaesthetist present for all operations on patients with life-threatening conditions.

The Royal Bolton will retain its A&E department and some of the other specialist services it already provides – such as neonatal care, breast screening and bowel screening.