HEALTHCAR E DE LIVE RY
Manchester hubs: moving health to the high street
Work underway in Manchester shows how intertwined technological and economic revolutions can be harnessed to create a health revolution in which streamlined care is brought closer to the UK’s rapidly ageing population. Kelvin Moulding, division director of Health Spaces, provides an insight.
Putting more NHS healthcare assets into the heart of local communities presents an exciting opportunity to increase efficiency, lower costs, improve staff wellbeing, while reducing clinical risk. There is now a once-in-a-generation chance to embrace economic and technological changes and put healthcare right where it is most needed. One example of this new model is the
Trafford Macular Treatment Centre, which has opened in two high-street shop units. It is a joint venture between the Manchester Royal Eye Hospital (MREH), pharmaceutical company Novartis and Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust.
The centre joined two others in providing follow-up consultations and treatment services to patients living with age-related macular degeneration (ARMD), which blurs vision in older people. Around 14% of people over 80 are affected by the condition.1 Patient Valarie Wrigley, who was 80 at the time of the opening, said: “I find the service
much easier to access and much more convenient. I have to come in quite frequently – every six weeks – and before moving my appointments to Trafford, it would take up my entire day with travel, but here, I am in and out and the staff are lovely.” Sajjad Mahmood, consultant ophthalmologist and clinical lead for the medical retina team commented: “I am a great believer in the model which meant we did not have to contend with the limitations of the infrastructure at the central hospital site. We managed to make the cost of the centre stack up because in high street locations costs are not the highest.” He says that the high street location is also a better working environment for staff – it is just as well equipped as the hospital site but with fewer distractions making it easier to focus. “The demand for age-related macular treatment is increasing and expanding our services has proved invaluable for our
patients,” added MREH chief executive John Ashcroft. “Our community eye clinics still remain among the first in the country to offer this level of treatment, in the heart of the community.”
All three ARMD centres are based in communities which are less-well-off, helping the “levelling-up” of healthcare – the two others are located in Cheetham Hill in north Manchester and Wythenshawe in south Manchester. Evidence shows that those living in deprived areas live 20 years less than in some affluent ones.2
Putting health
hubs in these communities helps bring healthcare where it is most needed. Each of the three Manchester community eye clinics are staffed by optometrists, ophthalmologists and specialist nurses who have provided tens of thousands of additional appointments a year in Manchester since they began in May 2018.3 This has also brought valuable footfall to the shopping centres with more than 90% of patients reviewed on, or within a week, of their required appointment.
The COVID-19 pandemic has allowed the centres to show their value in providing extra capacity. They were able to reopen relatively early and being away from hospitals meant their re-opening presented less of a risk to hospital patients and staff. This was reassuring to the centres’ COVID-wary patients too, many of whom are older and more at risk from the disease. They have since been helping to steadily work through the backlog.
Seeing more widely
The UK’s rapidly-ageing demographics had already meant a large number of people were waiting for treatment even before COVID struck in early 2020. More than 4.5 million patients were waiting for elective treatment before the pandemic began, one
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WWW.CLINICALSERVICESJOURNAL.COM JANUARY 2022
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