Health bosses reveal new shake up in stroke services
HEALTH chiefs claim another shake up of stroke services will improve patient care.
The East Cheshire Clinical Commissioning group (CCG), which funds local healthcare in Macclesfield, is planning to redesign stroke rehabilitation services.
From October stroke care will not be provided in the town but at specialist centres like Stepping Hill and Royal Stoke hospital with rehabilitation services offering patients treatment in their own home.
The move comes as the CCG has revealed it is battling to plug a £9.7m budget blackhole by 2017.
But health bosses claim the redesign will not cut stroke services costs but actually increase on the £3m it currently spends per year.
The shake up is the latest change to stroke care in the town. In March 2015 patients started being taken to specialist centres instead of Macclesfield hospital but Macclesfield hospital offered rehabilitation. But the hospital maintained rehabilitation services.
In October, the hospital announced it would axe rehab services. Since then CCG has spent £800,000 on ensuring rehab services are available until October when the new system will be introduced.
Health bosses believe the changes could help around 125 patients per year and cut costs, by reducing the amount of time they spend in hospital significantly.
David Rutley, Macclesfield MP, said he would be meeting with the CCG to discuss its proposals. He added: “As I understand it the proposals will mean initial treatment at Stepping Hill for shorter period and then improved specialist rehabilitation in the community. Having spoke to the CCG I understand that this will mean better health outcomes and lower costs. And that the approach is in place across Manchester already. However it depends on specialist rehab services being made available and effectively implemented.”
A spokesman for the CCG said: “In cases where existing providers are no longer able to sustain a service that meets clinical safety standards or are financially unsustainable, it is the CCG’s responsibility to find alternative providers or to provide additional funding to the existing providers. This can sometimes result in increased costs for the CCG – as was the case with intermediate care bed based services, stroke services, specialist nurse services and appliances.”
Other proposals to save £9.7m between now and April 2017 include stopping the prescription of some medicines and merging with other CCGs.
Local GPs spend £550,000 every year on prescriptions for paracetamol, ibuprofen, skin creams and vitamins.
But the East Cheshire Clinical Commissioning group (CCG) claim patients could buy their own in shops for less than half the price it costs the NHS to prescribe them.
The CCG wants to cut the number of GP consultations by 124,000 per year - 40pc and the amount of GP time by 20pc.
The CCG added: “In addition, we have no intention of reducing the availability of GP appointments. In fact, our planned changes to stop paying for certain overthe-counter medicine currently available on prescription, such as paracetamol, will release GP capacity to spend more time with patients who require longer appointments.
“This is because our GPs provide 124,000 appointments every year for the sole purpose of prescribing medicines that are available overthe-counter and do not require a prescription – not the best use of GP expertise or time. We have developed a financial recovery plan to achieve the required savings of £9.7 million. The plan has two elements: improving efficiency and redesigning services. We are already working with members of the public.”
The plans are set to be discussed at a meeting of Cheshire East Council’s health and social care scrutiny committee on Thursday In documents on the council’s website the CCG blamed its ‘deteriorating financial position’ on a drop in funding.