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£1.5M cost is branded a 'waste'
20/ 5/2006
CONSULTATION chiefs have spent over £1.5M asking people about the future of services at Rochdale Infirmary.
The figure has been branded 'scandalous' and 'a waste' by Rochdale politicians, who said the cash could have been better spent.
Over the past four months, Healthy Futures and Making It Better consultations have been asking residents, hospital staff and community members to have their say on maternity, children's and neo-natal services, and urgent accident and emergency care.
Healthy Futures spent over £655,000 on their consultation, with £280,000 used for leaflets and booklets, £160,000 on reports and financial analysis and £86,000 on staffing. A total of 4,085 people completed a Healthy Futures response forms with over 36,000 petition signatures collected.
Making It Better, which covers a wider area, spent £865,000, with £410,000 on documents, £170,000 on reports and financial analysis and £95,000 on staffing. Over 55,000 written responses were received, with another 125,000 petition signatures received, making it the largest ever response to a UK health consultation.
John Williams, director for the consultations, said: "This signals the end of a highly successful consultation phase. The process now focuses on the analysis of response and the ultimate decision-making."
Councillor Jean Ashworth, member of the Friends of Our Hospital pressure group, said: "This is scandalous and an absolute disgrace.
"The £1.5M is money could have been spent elsewhere and goes to show how much money in the NHS is going in the wrong direction.
"We're reading every day how much debt there is and the money could be used to employ more nurses and proper resources. It is a waste."
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Will it stop the proposed changes to the Pennine trust ? -- I think not - These statistical surveys were an attempt to do a whitewash job on the people of Rochdale , and at their own expense .
26/06/2006 at 16:48