Vascular decision to be referred to health secretary (From Warrington Guardian)

Vascular decision to be referred to health secretary

10:30am Tuesday 2nd October 2012 in News

THE decision over whether some vascular services will be moved from Warrington Hospital to Chester has still not been referred to health secretary Jeremy Hunt.

A joint committee of councillors from Warrington, Halton and St Helens voted to send the decision after they objected to the move in July.

But three months on the Warrington Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) has been told the letter has not yet been sent as Warrington Borough Council is still ‘finalising the draft’ of the letter.

The move would mean patients requiring complex surgery would be sent to the Countess of Chester Hospital which would become a vascular specialist centre.

Health officials proposed the changes to improve the skills of specialist surgeons but the plans were strongly opposed by a number of councillors in the area.

Clr Tony Higgins (LAB - Fairfield and Howley), chairman of the joint overview and scrutiny committee, said nobody had been ‘dragging their feet over the letter’ and it was going to be posted after the Warrington Guardian spoke to him on Monday.

He added: “It may seem like an inordinate length of time but we have been dealing with St Helens and Halton to get all of the information together and to make a strong case.

“We had to make sure we had all the evidence, everyone was happy and that we had a concrete case.

“We believe strongly that the removal of that service from Warrington Hospital is wrong and that this is the right action to take and as soon as the meeting was finished in July we started working on putting our argument together.”