Hospital beds cut across four Greater Manchester hospitals

Date published: 30/05/2007

About 10% of beds are to be cut across four Greater Manchester hospitals to help an NHS trust balance its books.

Staff at the Pennine Acute Trust were told of the plans to cut 221 of its 2,279 beds at a meeting on Tuesday.

The Trust runs Rochdale Infirmary, Fairfield General Hospital in Bury, the Royal Oldham Hospital and North Manchester General.

The Trust has said that the cuts will not affect patient services and that all staff will be redeployed.

A spokesman said the Trust did not yet know numbers of staff affected, because many work across different areas.

37 beds will be lost out of Rochdale's 394
Fairfield Hospital will lose 55 of its 518 beds
Royal Oldham will lose 69 of its 703 beds
60 beds from a total of 664 to go at North Manchester

Pennine Acute Trust was £28m in debt last year and the bed cuts are part of a number of measures on its "recovery plan".

At Rochdale, a medical ward will be lost and at Fairfield an orthopaedic ward will be cut from 22 to 12 beds.

The Royal Oldham Hospital will lose an 18-bed surgical unit and 12 of 28 beds on an orthopaedic ward.

At North Manchester the cuts will include the closure of a 20-bed short-stay ward. 

Dr Ruth Jameson, medical director, said: "Reducing our beds through this programme will not affect patient services, because we are becoming much more efficient at using our resources.

"We have been tackling system bottlenecks and providing support systems which enable our staff to work more efficiently.

"Improvements in admission and discharge, planned bed booking and day surgery are good practice and are popular with patients, but they also increase our efficiency."

The trust says that wards on which beds are being cut are underused - many with occupancy rates at 70% or under.

Roger Pickering, director of human resources and organisational development at Pennine Acute, said: "Our aim is as before, to deliver financial recovery, while minimising the impact on patient services and staff."

Pete Hinchliffe, Trade Union Convenor for the Trust said: "Although we knew this was coming, it represents yet more bad news for staff and patients. Let's make no mistake, these cuts were made wholly for financial reasons so how anyone can say that losing beds will not affect patient services is in danger of losing touch with reality.

"We really do appear to be working for the Incredible Shinking Trust. The numbers of staff are down. The number of beds is down. The only thing that appears to be going up are the Directors salaries and staff car parking charges. Our members are deeply concerned and very angry. They joined the NHS for a lifetime career providing healthcare for patients. Now some of them are wondering whether or not they've signed on for an 'ocean cruise' only to find out that the name of the ship is the RMS Titanic.

"The bed cuts this week are the tip of a much larger iceberg. We know that more are on the way."