“Local health service leaders must listen . . .”

David Rutley MP has once again urged local health service leaders to develop more acceptable proposals to ensure that much-needed adult mental health beds are kept in Macclesfield. This follows the recent statement issued by Eastern Cheshire Clinical Commissioning Group (ECCCG) on the next steps for the proposals to redesign specialist acute adult and older people’s mental health services in Cheshire East, which were subject to a twelve-week public consultation place earlier this year.

ECCCG has now received the independently-prepared and analysed report of all the feedback submitted to the consultation by local patients, residents and stakeholders, and is taking time to fully consider the feedback received. The full consultation report will be made available to the public in early September, on ECCCG’s website (www.easterncheshireccg.nhs.uk). A decision-making business case will then be prepared and brought to a meeting in public of the three local Clinical Commissioning Groups before the end of the year, when a decision will be made as to how to move forward.

That is why David is taking this opportunity to go on speaking up for local residents and call on local health service leaders to ensure that new and improved proposals are developed to keep vital mental health beds for adult patients in Macclesfield, rather than moving them to the Bowmere Hospital in Chester, as set out in the consultation’s preferred option. He has urged that the £1.1 million of capital funding allocated to expanding facilities at the Bowmere Hospital could be used to establish a new ward in Macclesfield, potentially on the Rosemount site, close to Macclesfield Hospital and Lime Walk House, thereby countering the need to move beds to Chester from Cheshire East.

David raised these vital issues at a meeting with Dr Paul Bowen, Chair of ECCCG, recently, when it was confirmed to David that no decision on the future shape and scope of local mental health services has been made or will be made until later this year, to give time for all the feedback submitted through the public consultation to be fully considered. David stressed to Dr Bowen that it remains vital for local health service leaders to listen to the overwhelming strength of public feeling from local residents and patients in support of retaining vital adult inpatient beds in Macclesfield.

Speaking after his meeting, David said, “Local health service leaders must listen to the message that has been sent out loud and clear from local residents, patients and carers that they want to see much-needed adult mental health beds stay in Macclesfield. It is vital that more acceptable proposals are put on the table to better serve patients in north East Cheshire requiring access to vital mental health services, and their families, by retaining much-needed adult inpatient beds locally.”