EXCLUSIVE: NHS Consultation on impact on 2,269 Wirral cancer patients of Clatterbridge inpatient and outpatient cuts
Despite Clatterbridge Cancer Centre being one of three charities chosen by the Mayor of Wirral for fundraising this year, Wirral Council’s Families and Wellbeing Policy and Performance Committee will be discussing at a public meeting on the evening of the 8th July (in Committee Room 1 (ground floor) at Wallasey Town Hall, Brighton Street, CH44 8ED) a consultation on major changes to Clatterbridge Cancer Centre. Employees from the Clatterbridge Cancer Centre will be there at the meeting to answer questions from councillors and co-opted members of the Families and Wellbeing Policy and Performance Committee.
The formal consultation, expected to start next month (July 2014) will run for twelve weeks. UPDATED: 28th July 2014 The consultation has started and runs to October 19th 2014.The “preferred option” being consulted on includes:
- Creating a new Cancer Centre at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital campus. Closing all cancer inpatient beds at the Clatterbridge Cancer Centre and moving the inpatient beds to the Royal Liverpool University Hospital’s new Cancer Centre,
- Relocating the Teenage and Young Adult Unit (including the inpatient beds) from the Wirral to Liverpool and
- Relocating complex outpatient radiotherapy from the Wirral to Liverpool (which represents about 6% of outpatient treatments).
If the NHS decides to go for the preferred option after the consultation period, predictions show the new Cancer Centre in Liverpool having 278 in-patients from the Wirral area by the time it opens in 2018/19. It is also predicted that 2,269 cancer patients living on the Wirral will be travelling to the new Cancer Centre in Liverpool by 2018/19. If the preferred option was agreed, all patients however would still be given a choice of where they receive treatment (provided this choice provides the specific treatment they need based on their type of cancer).
The proposals plan that the new Cancer Centre will be built in Liverpool between July 2016 and July 2018. Due to the wide area affected by the proposals, if Wirral Council’s Families and Wellbeing Policy and Performance Committee deem the proposals to be substantial they will nominate two Wirral Council councillors to a Merseyside and Cheshire Joint Scrutiny Committee. The Merseyside and Cheshire Joint Scrutiny Committee will scrutinise the proposals in detail and could comprise of representatives from Cheshire East Council, Cheshire West and Chester Council, Halton Borough Council, Knowsley Council, Liverpool City Council, St. Helens Metropolitan Borough Council, Sefton Council, Warrington Borough Council and Wirral Borough Council.
A briefing session on the joint scrutiny protocol was given to the following councillors on the 11th March 2014 (Councillor Wendy Clements (in her capacity as the then Chair of the Families and Wellbeing Policy and Performance Committee), Councillor Moira McLaughlin (in her capacity then as Vice-Chair of the Families and Wellbeing Policy and Performance Committee (she is now its Chair) and Councillor Pat Williams (Liberal Democrat spokesperson).
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