3,000 voice support for bid to keep Hands mental health off! services in Macc
APETITION to keep mental health services in Macclesfield has gained almost 3,000 signatures.
Campaigners have rallied after the Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (CWP) proposed closing the town’s 58-bed Millbrook Unit, which provides beds for people with dementia and adults with acute mental health problems, in order to keep up with increasing demand and reduced budgets.
Campaigners say acute mental health provisions should be kept in the town at all costs.
Michael Heale, 68, chairman of the East Cheshire Mental Health Forum, conceded that the Millbrook Unit is no longer fit for purpose, but said services should be kept in Macclesfield, not taken to Chester as proposed.
He said: “[the Millbrook Unit] is around 25 years old and it is not conducive to getting better. Really, what we are looking for is some form of provision for acute care within Maccles- field. We want local care for local people.
“Reducing the number of beds from 60 to six is just not good enough, it needs to be done much more gradually. What we want to know is whether there will be acute mental health care provisions.”
A 12 week public consultation into the plans is expected to begin at the end of February.
Trust bosses have come up with three alternatives to be considered, but say their preferred option is to close the Millbrook Unit and send adult mental health patients to a hospital in Chester, keeping six beds in the town.
But Macclesfield MP David Rutley says there are too many unanswered questions to make an informed decision.
He said: “There are important questions that should be answered before CWP seeks to move to a public consultation. We need to know what packages of community health services would actually be made available for patients, and how they would be delivered.
“CWP also needs to explain how it believes adult mental health services could be delivered with only six short- stay beds. Further, we need to understand more about the case studies, from other parts of the country, upon which these proposals are, presumably, based. These questions need to be answered, so that local patients and their families can have confidence in the future of local mental health services going forward. I will continue to press for these answers and keep close to these vital issues in the weeks ahead.
“I am grateful to the Macclesfield Express for highlighting concerns about proposed changes to local health services, and would also like to thank Michael Heale and the East Cheshire Mental Health Forum, for its continued local campaigning.”
The plans are available to view at www.easterncheshire ccg.nhs.uk/ Meetings/november-2017.