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Wythenshawe doctors launch legal battle against NHS over Healthier Together plans

Senior doctors from Wythenshawe Hospital have launched legal action against the NHS over the Healthier Together plans create four ‘super’ specialist hospitals in Manchester, law firm Irwin Mitchell has confirmed.

Campaign group ‘Keep Wythenshawe Special’, set up following the hospital’s withdrawal from the race in July, has submitted court papers looking to prompt a judicial review of the scheme.

According to the Manchester Evening News, NHS bosses claim the move could cost the system £500,000 in legal costs.

The hospital was one of the 10 in the running to become one of Manchester’s new ‘super’ specialist hubs, set to become the only site to handle emergency abdominal surgery – but lost out to Stepping Hill Hospital.

A small group of consultants, backed by the hospital’s Medical Staffing Committee, have now appealed against the 12 Greater Manchester CCGs, whose decision has been branded a “downgrade” for the provider.

A judge is expected to consider in early November whether the case will proceed to a full judicial review hearing, after which the court would make a final decision before the end of the year.

A spokesperson for Irwin Mitchell, Mathieu Culverhouse, said: “The campaign has been launched by concerned members of staff at Wythenshawe Hospital, who believe that the loss of specialist status will have a catastrophic impact on patient care at their hospital.

“The campaigners believe that the decision, taken at a meeting on 15 July, was unlawful on a number of grounds, including that it was based mainly on concerns over travel times for patients outside of Greater Manchester, and did not give proper consideration to other factors, such as clinical outcomes, cost and the knock-on impact on other services at Wythenshawe.”

And Andrew Macdonald, consultant surgeon speaking on behalf of the campaign group, said: “It is with great regret that we feel we have been left with no choice but to take formal legal action. We have not been given the assurances we sought from the commissioning groups and have real concerns about how the plans will affect patient safety in Greater Manchester.”

The legal challenge is being funded by donations from consultants and hospital staff, but the campaigners are also inviting grants from the general public through their website.

Background

Plans to redesign Manchester’s healthcare have proven controversial in the past, with more than 100 consultants at Wythenshawe objecting to plans to move emergency general surgery to Manchester Royal Infirmary under the restructuring.

The hospital argued that the scheme, which will create a ‘single shared service’ for general surgery, would have a detrimental effect on other services.

Wythenshawe & Sale East MP, Labour’s Mike Kane, said when the hospital was squeezed out of the race: “After the downgrading of the Trafford A&E and the closure of the walk-in centre at Wythenshawe centre, we were told those services would be moving to Wythenshawe. Unfortunately, it looks like that through Healthier Together, that we may be having a downgrade. That is not right.”

And most recently, on 3 September, the provider’s Medical Staff Committee sent a letter to the secretary of state on behalf of its trust, University Hospital of South Manchester (UHSM), arguing the decision was “unlawful, unreasonable and illogical”.

It said: “It puts the integrity of UHSM, an integrated acute trust with the largest critical mass of secondary and tertiary specialities in Greater Manchester, at risk, threatening to render it non-viable, with a consequently damaging effect on healthcare for the patient of South Manchester and the wider region.

“We believe that the interests of DevoManc would be better served, with respect to care-quality, clinical outcomes and value for money, by building further on what we already offer, and which cannot be rapidly or cost-effectively re-provided elsewhere.”