Healthier Together Programme (Greater Manchester)

David Rutley Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd July 2014 Westminster Hall

[Kate Green]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, and the issue about democracy that she raises is one that we are all particularly concerned about.

[David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)]

I would just like to put it on record that my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Brady), who cannot be here because of a commitment, shares concerns about the process and the way in which things are moving forward, which I think he has also expressed to the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane). I just want to put it on the record that other Members are also expressing their concerns.

[Kate Green]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that contribution.

I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East will talk particularly about the situation at Wythenshawe hospital, which is in his constituency, and our particular concern for the status of that hospital as a fixed-site specialist centre of excellence for a number of specialisms that matter not only to the population of south Manchester, or even to the population of Greater Manchester, but to the whole population of the north-west region. Some of those specialisms matter to the whole population of the north of England, and parts of Scotland too. It is deeply concerning to us that the Healthier Together consultation appears not only to be unaware of the difficulty of protecting those specialisms in the proposed process of remodelling hospital configurations, but to be completely unaware of the interdependency of specialisms and general acute and medical provision. If one element is removed from a cocktail of clinical support that is available to support high-level specialisms, those specialisms are completely undermined and eventually will probably be unable to survive.

I have a particular example of that process that I will draw to the Minister’s attention; it arises from my visit last week to Wythenshawe hospital and its highly regarded cystic fibrosis unit. The doctors and clinical staff there told me that the unit benefited from being part of a much broader, fixed-site specialist team, and indeed survived on that basis. It draws on a range of other specialisms around the hospital, including interventional radiology, transplantation, urology, nutritional support teams, gastroenterology, diabetes, endocrinology, ear, nose and throat services, obstetrics, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation and so on. Picking out some specialisms and moving them cannot be done in isolation, but Healthier Together does not seem to be aware of that at all.

Finally, as my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton said, there are concerns about process—about how the public are being engaged in this debate. He said that we have a consultation taking place over the summer holidays, exactly as happened with the new health deal for Trafford, although we told them not to do that again, and during the working day. I understand that few people attended the public meeting in Trafford; I am not surprised, because it was difficult to know that it was even taking place. I would not be able to tell when it happened, because I was not notified directly, let alone my constituents.

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[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mrs Riordan. It is also a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall), who speaks with passion about his constituents, and the authoritative contributions from my hon. Friends the Members for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) and for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer), whom I congratulate on securing a timely debate.

We have world-class health services in Greater Manchester. My constituency is home to University Hospital of South Manchester, which delivers services amounting to £450 million, employs 6,500 people and has 530 volunteers, who give up their free time to help patients and visitors. The hospital has several fields of specialist expertise, including cardiology and cardiothoracic surgery, heart and lung transplantation, respiratory conditions, burns and plastics, cancer and breast care services. Indeed, the trust is home to Europe’s first purpose-built breast cancer prevention centre, which I visited just a few weeks ago to see the unveiling of the new plaque dedicated to my predecessor, Paul Goggins, who worked so hard for the services at Wythenshawe. The hospital not only serves the people of south Manchester, but helps patients from across the north-west and beyond.

[David Rutley]

The hon. Gentleman speaks with passion and great knowledge about his local hospital. I was fortunate enough to be able to witness how good the services are at Wythenshawe, because I was whisked away when I spent a day with the North West ambulance service. I went in to see heart surgery taking place there, and it is first class. We must recognise that the care pathways that link Wythenshawe—or Stepping Hill, for that matter—to outlying hospitals outside the Greater Manchester area, such as Macclesfield, are vital. Does he agree with my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Andrew Bingham) that it is critical that the ripple-out effects of the consultation are taken into account?

[Mike Kane]

I cannot agree more. Wythenshawe hospital lies at the south of the conurbation and at the south of the area of the Healthier Together consultation. Being at the south of the conurbation and south of the River Mersey, it has traditionally looked to provide services to people in Cheshire as a whole, including the hon. Gentleman’s constituency.

[David Rutley]

I am sorry to take the hon. Gentleman’s time again, but I thank him for giving way. It is odd that there are at least two options—options 4.1 and 4.2—where there would be no hospital in the south, with neither Wythenshawe nor Stepping Hill. Does he agree that that would be a strange outcome that could endanger patient health?

[Mike Kane]

I agree. It would be odd not only for my constituency, but for constituencies to the south in the Cheshire belt and the Cheshire plain that those hospitals serve.

Wythenshawe hospital is very much looking to the future and its long-term sustainability. It is developing the Manchester MediPark in partnership with Manchester city council and private sector developers. MediPark will exploit the huge strengths of Greater Manchester and the north-west in health and life science services. Research and development forms a key part of the new Manchester airport city enterprise zone, which I had the opportunity of updating Members on only last week during my Adjournment debate on regional airports.

UHSM is recognised as a centre of excellence for research and development, and is a founding member of Manchester Academic Health Science Centre. The partners of the science centre share the common goal of providing patients and clinicians with rapid access to the latest discoveries and improving the quality and effectiveness of patient care. It is clear that the hospital is going from strength to strength, but I fear that the planned Greater Manchester Healthier Together proposals, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton referred, could fundamentally destabilise the trust and lead to a loss of its major emergency service, many of its specialised services, its trauma service and even its teaching status.

The additional reorganisation is set against the backdrop of the Government’s £3 billion reorganisation of the NHS, which has siphoned off money from the front line to pay for back-office restructuring. In the first three years of this Government, attendances at A and E have increased by 633,000, yet Trafford general, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston referred and which serves many of my constituents, has seen a downgrading of its A and E department. It has got harder to get a GP appointment since the Government scrapped the previous Government’s guarantee of an appointment within 48 hours, and cut funding for extended opening hours. That is a key cause of Wythenshawe’s A and E problems.