The Minor Injuries Unit at Altrincham Hospital is set to be permanently closed.
The unit has been closed - with the exception of a single month in July 2021 - since lockdown in March 2020.
The Labour and Conservative candidates had made the reopening of the unit a priority during the election campaign earlier this summer.
But the recommendation contained in a Urgent Care Review undertaken by NHS Greater Manchester (GM) and partners, including Trafford Council’s Public Health Team, is that the unit should close for good.
The review, presented to a meeting of the Trafford Locality Board last week, says that minor injuries services and staff should be permanently relocated to Wythenshawe Hospital.
Explaining its decision, the review states: "NHS England guidance makes it clear that stand alone minor injury units should not be commissioned in an attempt to reduce the often-confusing mix of urgent care services."
It said that it had considered changing the unit to an 'Urgent Treatment Centre', but that financial and staff resources did not make it a "viable" option.
It added: "Since the temporary closure in April 2020 patients have accessed urgent care at the urgent treatment centres in Trafford and Wythenshawe, the latter of which is approximately 3 miles from Altrincham hospital.
"Our comprehensive needs assessment also identified that Trafford has relatively fewer areas of transport related social exclusions with Altrincham not being an area for concern due to its high rates of car ownership and access to good public transport links."
The review said that, when open, the unit had treated an average of 49 patients a day, with approximately 65% living within three miles.
The review therefore concluded that the service "served a small proportion of the Trafford population who, as described on the previous slide, can access an urgent treatment centre within a short distance".
It added that all other services currently being provided at Altrincham Hospital are planned to continue.
Connor Rand, Altrincham and Sale West's newly elected MP, said he was "deeply disappointed" by the recommendation.
He said: "Ultimately, the reason we are in this situation is because of 14 years of the Conservatives not giving the National Health Service the staff or funding it needs.
"It was a shortage of nurses that first shut the Minor Injuries Unit and its uncertain future cannot be separated from the toxic legacy of Tory Government that has led to local bodies having to make difficult decisions.
"However, the Minor Injuries Unit was a service people in Altrincham and Sale West relied on and appreciated. I’ll be writing to the Integrated Care Board to urge them to reconsider the downgrading of services at Altrincham Hospital and will raise this case in Parliament."
Mark Fisher, Chief Executive of NHS Greater Manchester, said: “We have been working very closely with Trafford residents, councillors and health and care partners on a comprehensive review of urgent and emergency services in our borough and we thank all those who took the time to give us their thoughts on urgent care services available to them.
“It was very clear that, although residents and patients generally have access to good services in the borough, there are changes we could adopt to make them easier to access, which we would look to deliver in line with our wider local plans.
“During the next 12 months, we will investigate the possibility of bringing ‘out-of-hours’ (outside 9am-5pm, Monday-Friday) GP care into, or closer to, Trafford, as well as improved methods of communication with patients to help to direct them to the right services.
“There is also a proposal for the permanent closure of the Minor Injuries Unit service based in two rooms at Altrincham Hospital, with the continued relocation of services and staff to Wythenshawe Hospital, approximately three miles away. All other services currently being provided at Altrincham Hospital would continue and other options for the use of these two rooms will now be considered."
A formal decision on the recommendations will be made by the NHS GM Integrated Care Board at its meeting in September.
