Withington Hospital, Manchester (Hansard, 26 July 1989)

§ Mr. Freeman

The North Western regional health authority recently published an implementation frame-work, "Focusing on Care", which emphasises the development of district services and makes it clear that the closure of the four large mental illness hospitals in the North West region will be carried out only at a pace consistent with adequate provision for the mentally ill in the community. In addition to acute in-patient services in each district and a range of residential facilities designed to meet the needs of long term service users, the frame work envisages a range of day care facilities including more day hospital provision which all district health authorities will take forward within the annual capital spending programme for North Western region currently running at more than £90 million.

Acute psychiatric in-patient services for central Manchester are currently based well outside the authority's boundary and are due for renewal in August 1991. Options for new provision have been submitted to the regional health authority who expect to be able to announce in the autumn a three-year capital programme from 1990–91. These options have been developed taking account of medical opinion that the services would best be provided nearer to patients and if possible attached to the Manchester Royal Infirmary.

The South Manchester health authority announced on 13 July 1989 the temporary closure of ward P10 in Withington Hospital, Manchester from August 1989 when a refurbished ward P9 will become available for acute care in-patients in the psychiatric department of Withington hospital. As a result of discussions, I have been reassured that: —no patients will be discharged from Withington hospital without the responsible consultant being entirely satisfied that adequate arrangements exist in the community to assist the patient and ensure continuing medical surveillance; —no patient need be discharged from the Withington hospital as a result of the temporary closure of ward P10 which will not take place before the refurbished ward P9 becomes available; —there will be 165 beds available in the South Manchester district for acute in-patient care for mentally ill patients. The average monthly occupancy over the past 12 months has been 153.

The South Manchester district health authority has been under acute financial pressure for a number of years and has had unfortunately to undertake a number of ward closures that have affected both Withington and Wythenshawe hospitals. There is an urgent need to re-appraise the duplicated provision of the whole range of district acute services in two major hospitals in the same district and situated within four miles of each other.

I plan to visit in the autumn the North West regional health authority in Manchester and Withington hospital and Manchester Royal Infirmary.