Greater Manchester to get Four so-called Super Hospitals
A committee of clinicians has voted to create four single specialist hospitals in the region.
Clinical leaders have decided that there will be four single services introduced in Greater Manchester to treat some of the most seriously ill hospital patients under the Healthier Together plans.
The Healthier Together decisions have been named as early priorities for the region’s ground-breaking devolution programme for health and care announced in February, involving NHS England, the 12 Greater Manchester CCGs, the 10 local authorities and 15 NHS Trusts.
Today’s decision is the second milestone following on from the announcement of plans to introduce seven day GP access across the whole of Greater Manchester, with an additional £7m investment to facilitate this expansion and plans for community care which includes boosting social care packages to help with hospital discharge and avoidable admissions.
Doctor Paul Bishop with the Salford CCG explains to our Chief Reporter Michelle Livesey what the four single service means:
All hospitals specialise in providing certain types of care, for example some hospitals specialise in stroke care, others in cancer care. Similarly, one of the hospitals within each of the single services will specialise in general surgery and emergency medicine, for patients with life threatening conditions.
All hospitals will improve to ensure they meet the quality and safety standards. All hospitals will keep their existing specialisms and will continue to provide care to their local population as they do now.
Today members of the ‘Committees in Common’ (CiC), comprising of GPs from each Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) in Greater Manchester, reviewed a range of evidence such as; the feedback from the public consultation held last year and data relating to; travel and access, quality and safety, transition (how easy it will be to achieve the change) and affordability and value for money.
The CiC reached a unanimous decision that implementing four single services would be the best way to deliver hospital services in Greater Manchester to improve standards of care and save more lives.
Chris Brookes is a Consulatnt in A&E and Medical Director at Salford Royal. He's also Medical Director of the Healthier Together programme and has been telling us what's the next step:
A further meeting will then take place next month on Wednesday 15th July for the CiC to decide the location of the single services and which hospitals will work in partnership.