Agenda and minutes

There were no declarations of interest made at the meeting.

There were no questions asked by the members of public present at the meeting.

The Minutes of the last meeting held on 22 July 2014 are attached.

It was agreed:

That the Minutes of the last meeting held on 22 July 2014 be approved as a correct record and signed by the Chair.

Councillor Walker reported that the Dentistry Sub Group had held its first meeting and had met with a Greater Manchester representative from Public Health England. The meeting had set the scene in relation to NHS dentistry provision across Bury but there were more in depth statistics required.

Councillor Walker referred to Minute HSC.175, Infection Control and stated that he would like to receive more information about Intra-health, the company that were providing the Infection Control service in the interim period.

Councillor Walker also asked if it would be possible to have a breakdown of funding for Public Health.

It was reported that Lesley Jones the Interim Director of Public Health for Bury Council had recently been appointed the Director of Public Health on a permanent basis.

It was agreed:

That Lesley be congratulated on her appointment.

An update will be given at the meeting.

Those present will be given the opportunity to ask questions.

Stuart North, Chief Officer at Bury CCG, Dr Kiran Patel, Chair of Bury CCG, Tom Henderson, Healthier Together and Dr Martin Vernon, Healthier Together attended the meeting to answer questions in relation to the Healthier Together consultation which was currently taking place across Greater Manchester.

It was explained that the Committee had already received presentations and reports relating to Healthier Together in the lead up to the consultation commencing.

The Members of the Committee received the consultation pack which set out the need for change across Greater Manchester, proposed changes to primary care, Community based care and hospital services.

Work had already started in relation to extended GP opening hours with Radcliffe residents having access to their GP from 8am to 8pm weekdays and weekend appointments to 6pm. This was also due to be rolled out across Bury from December 2014.

Dr Martin Vernon explained that the Healthier Together consultation was clinically led and had been developed following input from Doctors, Nurses and other clinicians across Greater Manchester who were concerned that there was not a consistent service across the conurbation. It was also explained that no hospital in Greater Manchester met all of the standards set out in relation to acute medicine or surgery.

It was explained that there had been many factors considered when coming up with the proposals contained within the consultation document;

·         The amount of money needed to set up and run a local General and a Specialist Hospital;

·         The number of doctors and nurses available to work in each single service;

·         The travel time to get to Specialist Hospitals and how it will affect patients; and

·         The hospital buildings, wards and operating theatres that are available.

The consultation document contained eight options. There were 12 hospitals across Greater Manchester and of these 12 three had already been designated as specialist hospitals due to their location and the services they currently offered, they were;

Manchester Royal Infirmary (MRI)

Salford Royal Hospital

Royal Oldham Hospital.

MRI and Salford Royal must be specialist hospitals to continue to provide services that are not provided anywhere else – specialised paediatric at Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital (Located within the MRI) and the adult neuroscience service at Salford Royal.

Trafford General Hospital and Rochdale Infirmary do not provide any of the services that are being considered within the review so they will not be considered within the review.

Three had been identified as local General hospitals; North Manchester General Hospital, Fairfield General Hospital and Trafford General Hospital. These sites had already been designated as Local Generals due to the service provision already agreed with their local CCGs.

This leaves four hospitals to be considered; Royal Bolton Hospital, Royal Albert Edward Infirmary (Wigan), Stepping Hill Hospital (Stockport) and Wythenshawe Hospital. The options within the consultation document were whether one or two of the remaining four are chosen to become Specialist Hospital Sites.

The consultation document included tables setting out specific factors relating to each option and scoring that had been undertaken in relation  ...  view the full minutes text for item HSC.250