Why choose us

East Cheshire NHS Trust's mission is to be the hospital of choice.
 
We are very proud of the services that we offer, the standards of patient care that we deliver and the performance that we achieve at the trust.

Our highlights

Some of our highlights of 2009/10 have included:

• The healthcare community reaped the benefits of a new way of working with the development of the emergency floor, which co-located the Emergency Unit and the Medical Admission Unit adjacent to the Emergency Department (ED). This has resulted in a faster assessment for patients and a reduction in the number of medical emergency admissions.
• A multi-disciplinary event took place during 2009/10 to focus on patient nutrition and a number of improvements have subsequently been implemented including: ensuring non urgent clinical activities do not take place during mealtimes, using volunteers to provide meal time assistance, more timely distribution of meals and reducing food waste.
• Our early warning score ensures that clinical areas are able to identify patients whose health is deteriorating at an early stage to improve the outcomes for patients. This is now fully implemented across the hospital.
• Work has been undertaken during 2009/10 to improve dignity and respect for patients. £292,000 has been spent on enhancing the layout of facilities in clinical areas and increasing bathroom facilities to provide same sex accommodation for patients. In March 2010, in line with national requirements, the trust published a declaration to confirm we have virtually eliminated mixed sex accommodation.  
• Patient passports for patients with learning difficulties have been developed and introduced to ensure that individualised information is available to doctors, nurses and administrative staff in an easy to read format to optimise levels of support during the patient journey. 
• A rapid improvement event was held in September 2009 focusing on improving care documentation used by nurses. The aim of the event was to encourage nursing staff to replace old paperwork with that which maximises the quality of care for patients, ensuring that patients receive the right care in the right place at the right time. New standardised documentation has been written to be used across the trust. This paperwork is easier and simpler for nurses to complete, thereby ensuring that documentation can be completed quickly, and patients get the care they need sooner.
• A rapid improvement event in stroke services was held in March 2009. The purpose of the event was to look at how processes could be improved to provide best practice care for stroke patients.  Looking at national stroke care requirements (eg stroke patients to be admitted directly to a Stroke Unit, patients to receive a scan within 24 hours of admission), the 40+ members of staff were inspired to make several service improvements. The Acute Stroke Unit and Stroke Rehabilitation Unit were combined, so that stroke care is provided on the same unit by the same staff. One of the most significant pieces of work to come out of the event was the creation of the stroke oracle database. This database records and reports on all the vital care information so that patient safety issues can be identified and addressed immediately. The trust received recognition for the database which was ‘highly commended’ in the data and information management category of the National Patient Safety Awards 2010.
• Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) was introduced in neuro-physiotherapy. FES is the use of electrical stimulation to aid physiotherapy when nervous or musculo-skeletal systems are damaged. As this service is now provided locally, patients can be seen and treated quickly and closer to home. FES is recommended by National Institute Clinical Excellence (NICE). It speeds up the patient’s recovery and reduces the risk of falling. The service has been officially recognised by the North West Strategic Health Authority as an example of innovative practice. 
• 2009/10 saw the further development of Christie @ East Cheshire to provide oncology services in a pleasant and accessible environment, and to avoid the need for patients to travel to Manchester for chemotherapy treatment. The extended chemotherapy service covers, breast cancer, bowel cancer and lung cancer.
• In January 2009, the trust made a joint consultant breast radiologist appointment in partnership with Stockport NHS Foundation Trust. This will support the trust in the delivery of extended breast screening programme that will commence during 2010/11 and will be compliant with the North West Cancer Plan (2008).
• During 2009/10 East Cheshire NHS Trust was identified as one of five hospitals in the North West to become a tier 2b Paediatric Allergy Centre, as part of a Department of Health best practice pilot across the region. The current service at East Cheshire NHS Trust involves hospital consultants having close working relationships with the general practitioners and community health colleagues for example school nurses. The aim of the service is to promote health and prevent and manage disease.
• In December 2009 full planning permission was granted for the proposed sale and development of the surplus Macclesfield District General Hospital land known as the ‘blue zone’ and has enabled the trust to clear its historic debt.