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Response has been far from grand

15/ 3/2006

ONLY just over 1,000 people from a population of 810,000 have filled in official Healthy Futures response forms to planned health service changes in north east Manchester.

That is only a quarter of the number of people who have signed the Advertiser's Hands Off Our Hospitals petition in Heywood.

The poor response so far reflects the apathy that was shown when health chiefs held a public meeting at Heywood Civic Centre on January 24 to explain about three options for change.

Health professionals at the meeting outnumbered members of the public.

The responses to the Making It Better plans for maternity and children's services in the whole of Greater Manchester have totalled more than 6,000 so far - but that is drawing on a total population of three million.

Paul Mainwaring, chairman of the Patients' Council - the main public voice in the Healthy Futures talks for general hospital and community health services changes - says the figures are far too low, considering the huge population.

And Sharron Entwistle, a leading figure in the Babies First campaign to save Fairfield's services, believes many of the 6,000 responses to the Making It Better review of maternity and children's services probably come from Fairfield's catchment area.

She said: "At every meeting we are getting hundreds of people to fill in the consultation forms.

"We got 400 people to fill them in at one meeting alone.

"And we are explaining to them exactly what could happen, because there is no way most people can possible digest more than 100 pages of information in the full document."