PLANS to move a surgical unit out of Wirral to Chester will continue despite severe criticism from councillors in the borough.
Moving the Arrowe Park-based vascular unit – which treats people with illnesses affecting their blood vessels – to the Countess of Chester Hospital has also faced objections from local doctors.
Specialist surgeon Mr Ramasubramanyan Chandrasekar told a meeting of Wirral Council’s health scrutiny committee “clinicians were actively excluded” from involvement in the decision-making.
In a presentation to the committee at Wallasey town hall, the doctor also said Wirral had more patients in need of the care provided by the unit than Chester.
The move is part of plans to create two centres of excellence in Merseyside, combining specialists in Wirral and Chester and also covering Warrington, with the other shared between the Royal Liverpool and Aintree hospitals north of the Mersey.
Gary Doherty, acting chief executive of Wirral University Teaching Hospital, said they had submitted a joint bid with Chester to avoid the service being relocated to Warrington, He admitted the proposed move could have been handled better but denied doctors had not been consulted
Peter Herring, chief executive of the Countess of Chester Hospital, said: “The issues raised by clinicians have been listened to and responded to.”
Kathy Doran, chief executive of the of Wirral, Chester and Warrington PCTs, told the meeting there would be consultation on the move but “implementation planning” for relocating the service to Chester would also get under way simultaneously.
Councillors were highly critical of previous consultation which the meeting heard involved only a handful of respondents from Wirral.
In a unanimous resolution they called for much greater consultation in Wirral and for a further report on this, adding that they would also refer the matter to Wirral Council’s ruling cabinet.
Conservative councillor Sheila Clarke said “Wirral people have not had their voice heard”, while Mike Hornby asked why did NHS managers “not listen to your own consultants?”.
