Work of Blackpool's Spiral Health celebrated at Downing St reception

The work of two Fylde Coast hospitals which provide NHS services, but which are run by their own nurses, has been praised by Minister for the Cabinet Office Francis Maude at a special Downing Street reception.

The Fylde Coast hospitals are in Bispham and Rossall and are run by social enterprise Spiral Health as nurse-led rehabilitation units. In April 2012 Bispham was the first NHS hospital unit to become a public sector mutual.

“There are now 100 public sector mutuals across England and Wales. These are new businesses, employing 35,000 people. We know this is just the beginning of a massive transformation – we have even had interest from a fire service looking to mutualise.”

This Easter it worked with the Blackpool Clinical Commissioning Group to ease patient flow, freeing up 72 bed nights on acute wards by offering suitable patients an intensive physiotherapy outreach service.