PATIENTS in Bury will now travel to Oldham for life-saving emergency surgery after Fairfield General was made a ‘local’ hospital.

Health chiefs have voted to create four ‘super hospitals’ in the region but say the decision was “not about winners and losers” and will save 300 lives a year.

Bosses from the region’s Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) voted unanimously to make Stepping Hill Hospital in Stockport the fourth specialist centre – alongside the Royal Oldham, Salford Royal and Manchester Royal Infirmary – on Wednesday.

This means Fairfield will become a ‘local’ hospital in a linked ‘single site’ encompassing Oldham, Rochdale Infirmary and North Manchester General Hospital.

Rochdale and North Manchester will also be ‘local’ centres and patients will travel to the Royal Oldham for high-risk emergency operations and stomach and bowel surgery.

But health bosses have assured patients no A&E departments will close and say Fairfield will be improved and will still retain its specialisms such as stroke services.

Dr Anton Sinniah, medical director for Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs Fairfield, the Royal Oldham, Rochdale Infirmary and North Manchester General Hospital, said: “The Trust is well placed for this as our staff have already been delivering such services across our four hospital sites for a number of years to a population of over 800,000, with significant improvements in outcomes.

“It is for this reason we know that such models of care are beneficial to the local population and support the planned changes.

"No A&E will close under the Healthier Together proposals and we are clear that our staff at our other sites at North Manchester, Fairfield and Rochdale and our community services will continue to play a major role.”

Each ‘single site’ will pool medical teams, allowing staff to share expertise between different sites and move patients between hospitals quickly.

The plans, which will now be implemented in the next two to three years, will ensure surgeons at the super hospitals can carry out emergency and high-risk operations seven days a week.

All 10 hospitals will have a senior doctor in A&E for at least 12 hours a day, seven days a week; a senior doctor in every acute medical ward for 12 hours a day, seven days a week and daily clinics at every site for assessment of patients with urgent general surgery problems.

One of the aims of Healthier Together was that patients should be able to have emergency access to a super hospital within 45 minutes by car or ambulance.

Health bosses said 97 per cent of Greater Manchester’s population should be able to access their super hospital by public transport within an hour and 15 minutes.

Stuart North, chief officer for NHS Bury Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) said: “We welcome the unanimous agreement of the four single services, which will allow an even spread of hospitals working together across Greater Manchester to treat the most seriously ill patients and will ultimately save lives.

“Fairfield General Hospital will be improved as part of these changes to meet safety and quality standards and it is reassuring that it will retain its specialisms such as stroke services, whilst working in partnership through this new network of linked hospitals to ensure that all patients have access to care they need, no matter where they live.”

In his summing up to the committee at Wednesday’s meeting of the Committees in Common (CiC), programme board deputy chair Ian Williamson said: “This is not a judgement on the quality of care provided in hospitals.

“The decision is about the best geographical location of services to serve our patients. Instead of winners and losers we believe the whole population will be winners because these proposals will save 300 lives a year."