Last chance to have your say on relocation of outpatient clinics

handforthclinic

Residents have less than week to express their views on proposals to relocate a number of outpatient clinics from Handforth Health Centre which would affect just over 1000 local residents.

Whilst a number of services are proposed to remain on the Handforth Health Centre site, including the adjacent GP Practice, many of the clinics operated by NHS East Cheshire Trust will be relocated to alternative sites when their lease expires in October 2017.

In order to retain all the space it currently occupies at Handforth Clinic, East Cheshire NHS Trust would face additional costs of around £65,000 per year from October 2017.

A spokesperson for East Cheshire NHS Trust said "Our local health economy is currently in significant deficit and neither East Cheshire NHS Trust or NHS Eastern Cheshire Clinical Commissioning Group can justify spending significant additional funds on items that do not result in increased patient benefit.

"Some of the clinics we are proposing to move are under-utilised at Handforth and most of the patients who attend them will already travel to Macclesfield for further tests, investigations and treatment as part of their pathway of care. The services we plan to retain at Handforth are mainly therapy and nursing-based services which patients tend to use regularly and deliver hands-on care, so are more likely to bring patient benefit by being delivered locally.

"Importantly, many of these services are also available to patients from various alternative healthcare providers in the Handforth area through a national policy system which allows patients to choose where to have their treatment delivered."

In order to avoid incurring a significant additional cost from October onwards East Cheshire NHS Trust are proposing to move the following outpatient clinics from Handforth Clinic and deliver them from Macclesfield District General Hospital instead:

• Orthopaedics

• Gynaecology

• Urology

• Breast Surgery

• Audiology

• Paediatrics

They are proposing to move the following outpatient clinics from Handforth Clinic and deliver them from Knutsford and District Community Hospital instead:
• Rheumatology

• Respiratory Medicine

Additionally:
• Midwifery clinics would move to Oakenclough Children's Centre, Colshaw Drive, Wilmslow

• General Surgery clinics will be delivered from both Macclesfield Hospital and Congleton War Memorial Hospital.

A spokesperson for East Cheshire NHS Trust said "There would be no reduction in overall capacity and availability of appointments for these services. It is also important to note that less than half (46%) of patients attending these clinics are from the Handforth (SK9 postcode) area, with other patients travelling to the centre from neighbouring areas.

The following services will continue to be provided by East Cheshire Trust from Handforth Clinic, subject to final negotiations with partners:
• Community Nursing Services

• Epilepsy Clinic

• Physiotherapy

• Continence

• Paediatric Speech and Language Therapy

• Parkinson's Clinic

• Heart Failure Clinic

• Weight Management

• Anti-coagulant Clinic

• GP Out-of-Hours

• Sexual Health

• Occupational Therapy

• Podiatry

Click here for further information regarding the consultation which ends on Sunday, 3rd September.

Tags:
East Cheshire NHS Trust, Handforth Health Centre
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Comments

Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below.

Brian Tolver
Wednesday 30th August 2017 at 4:56 pm
Handforth Parish Councilmen last night (Tuesday 29th) and are formally objecting strongly to these proposals. The services would mostly be removed to Macclesfield Hospital, which is a nightmare to get to from Handforth or Wilmslow by train, by bus (45 stops each way) or car (no parking spaces at Macc Hospital). And the time it takes for what might only be a few minutes' consultation is out of all proportion.

What is incomprehensible is reducing services, at a time when the new CEC Local Plan is going to introduce an additional 3,000+ houses over the next decade, virtually doubling the population that the Handforth Clinic serves.

We all understand the NHS needs to be very careful with its money, but saving just a few £thousand at such enormous expense in both money AND time to patients, needs rethinking. This proposal might be convenient for the East Cheshire NHS Trust, but it is extremely inconvenient for thousands of Handforth and Wilmslow patients.
Anne Greenhalgh
Wednesday 30th August 2017 at 11:41 pm
Do patients actually know the clinics available at Handforth? I certainly didn't! With the proposed extra housing in the pipeline, as Brian Tolver points out, is it feasible to move
services away? Macclesfield is bad enough if you don't have a car but Knutsford is a no no.
If the clinics were more widely advertised, I feel sure that the patients would opt for them.
Sue Levy
Wednesday 30th August 2017 at 11:58 pm
As usual, a retrograde step that will make vulnerable people's life even more difficult.
Parking at Macclesfield is already a nightmare. Further to have to walk to clinics for disabled patients. Is the council going to pay for transport, because those unable to drive won't be able to attend?
At a time when the council have given the go ahead to having 3000 new homes in Handforth cutting local medical access is just crazy.
Pete Taylor
Thursday 31st August 2017 at 5:44 am
With CEC this week approving the construction of anther 950 houses in Macclesfield, coupled with the hundreds more in Handforth and Wilmslow surely the sensible thing would be to move services away from Macclesfield, rather than make an already congested situation worse?
Kerry Louise Burgess
Thursday 31st August 2017 at 1:38 pm
It took me over an hour this morning to get to Macclesfield Hospital from Handforth due to congestion and traffic!!. It would be awful to lose these services from Handforth. I sincerely hope Cheshire East Council listens to us.
Verna Riding
Thursday 31st August 2017 at 3:25 pm
I have always felt that the facilities offered at Handforth have been second to none. My family and I have been able to avail ourselves of such facilities and have been grateful. To remove such facilities from a community which is constantly growing would, in my opinion, be a very retrograde step.

There is a large elderly population in the area and such people will feel the loss, many do not have their own transport and to have to travel to Knutsford, Congleton or Macclesfield would cause great hardship.
Julie Smith
Thursday 31st August 2017 at 4:54 pm
Kerry, it is made clear in the consultation paper that it is only the 'UNDER UTILISED ' clinics that are being relocated. All the others will remain. As for parking, anyone who has tried to park at Handforth Health Centre will be aware of the horrendous problems some of us face on a daily basis. At least you are assured of a parking space at Macclesfield hospital within a short space of time due to the parking restrictions.
Pete Taylor
Friday 1st September 2017 at 2:58 pm
@Kerry, it is NHS East Cheshire Trust you need to address, not Cheshire East council.