People living in Eastern Cheshire are to be given their say on plans to transform healthcare in Greater Manchester.
NHS Eastern Cheshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), which plans and buys care for 204,000 people outside the city, is joining forces with its Greater Manchester counterparts to stage a Listening Event in Wilmslow Library on Tuesday 23rd September from 6pm to 8pm.
The consultation will enable residents to help shape the Healthier Together programme - the country's largest healthcare transformation - by talking to leading clinicians and sharing their views.
Healthier Together representatives will explain their plans to improve access to GP and primary care, to join up care in the community and at home, and to change the way hospitals work.
Of particular interest to Eastern Cheshire residents will be the option for Stepping Hill Hospital, Stockport or University Hospital South Manchester, Wythenshawe to be given specialist hospital status.
Jerry Hawker, Chief Officer of NHS Eastern Cheshire CCG, said: "This event is for our residents, and everybody has a view on what best care is for them. Coming to Wilmslow Library is a perfect chance for people to speak up about healthcare proposals affecting them.
"The Healthier Together Programme is very similar to the Eastern Cheshire Caring Together Programme in its desire to improve the health outcomes of its local population through improving primary care, the further development of joined up health and social care services in the community and changing the way hospital services are provided.
"Although NHS Eastern Cheshire CCG is only an associate to the Healthier Together programme and therefore not part of the formal consultation around hospital reconfiguration, we recognise the importance of ensuring that members of our population who access services in Greater Manchester have every opportunity to express their views on the changes being proposed."
Residents can sign up to attend the event here.
For more information on Healthier Together, visit www.healthiertogethergm.nhs.uk.
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That little sentence above misses out our local Macclesfield Hospital, which - not having appled for Foundation Trust status - seems to be about to be denuded of yet more services.
Note well: What is written about above is "the option for" the three hospitals.. but contained within that word 'option' is the possibility of these hospitals not being used, sending us ever further afield so that health needs can be addressed..
What transport is to be used by the elderly, disabled, sick, poor to reach even those hospitals mentioned, let alone the hospitals further afield?
Care in the Community is to be at the forefront with GP Health centres providing 24/7 service - how they will cope with the ever increasing numbers of patients is not evidenced or explained, when they are clearly unable to cope now.
There is a huge hole in the NHS finances that will only get bigger with time and there is no evidence here that there is any joined up plan in the making to change services for the better. Just more cuts by another name.