Last week our Councillor Tim Pickstone attended a special meeting on transport issues for Bury around the proposed changes to hospital services in Greater Manchester.

Tim reports:
You may be aware from the media or from emails earlier in the year about the proposed changes to emergency services which are currently being consulted on by the NHS.

The proposals would be that for the most ‘severe’ emergencies, there would only be 3, 4 or 5 hospitals that would be ‘specialist hospitals’ that would be able to deal with the most severe of emergencies (broadly emergencies that might require emergency surgery).

None of the options being consulted on have either Fairfield or North Manchester as ‘specialist hospitals’ – so our nearest ones would be MRI, Hope or Oldham Royal.

For 95% of A&E attendances we would continue to use our nearest hospital (i.e. North Manchester or Fairfield), but for 5% of A&E attendances (broadly the ones you need an ambulance for) we would need to go to a specialist hospital.

Many people have been concerned about the impact on people in Bury of these changes around travel to the hospitals. I attended a special meeting with the NHS on Monday about this and wanted to report back.

Ambulances
Obviously if we are being taken to Hope, MRI or Oldham in an ambulance, this is a longer journey than a journey to North Manchester. I asked about whether this would mean that ambulance times met minimum standards, and also whether we would need MORE ambulances.

At the moment the ambulance service is not monitored on its performance in an individual borough (e.g. the % of journeys for Bury people that get to hospital in x minutes) – only for the Greater Manchester average. A good idea was that they should have to deliver on Bury targets too which would ensure that we continued to get the service we needed.

Travel to Hospital
Other issues around around getting to the specialist hospitals – e.g. if you need to visit a relative or close friend in hospital.

One very big issue that I raised is that public transport from almost anywhere in Bury to either Hope Hospital or the Oldham Royal is dreadful. We do have an occasional bus from Prestwich to Hope, but this isn’t a frequent service. Tram travel to Hope and Oldham both take a long time because of the need to go via the city centre and change.

There is also the issue of parking at hospitals. I know hope have just built more parking, but certainly Oldham has some significant parking problems.

Please get in touch if you require any further information. tim@burylibdems.net