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Emergency teams given top marks

Alice McKeegan
30/ 9/2008

EMERGENCY and urgent care services in Rochdale have been ranked as some of the best in the region.

NHS Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale was named as one of the ‘better performing’ health trusts in the North West following the most comprehensive review yet of emergency care.

The study by the Healthcare Commission rated ambulance response times and out-of-hours GP and accident and emergency care, with services in Rochdale described as ‘improving’.

Despite the promising assessment, Rochdale Infirmary’s accident and emergency unit is still set to be downgraded by 2011.

Ian Mello-Baron, NHS Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale’s head of strategy, believes the results are encouraging, but improvements can be made.

He said: "The quality of urgent and emergency care provided to people living in the borough is of a good standard.

"However, we realise there is still a lot more progress to be made and are investing considerably into services.

"The number of new health centres being developed will help to reduce the number of unnecessary visits to accident and emergency or out of hours services, allowing care to be provided to those who really need emergency treatment."

One of the trust’s key strengths was providing out of hours medication to patients but the study found that out of hours appointment response times needed further improvement.

Nationally, the review found that the number of people dealt with inside four hours in accident and emergency has increased from 91.2 per cent in 2003/04 to 97.9 per cent in 2007/08.

The number of ambulances responding to life-threatening calls within eight minutes has gone from 74.6 per cent in 2002/03 to 77.1 per cent in 2007.