Health trusts urged to pay for pool use

HEALTH bosses have been urged to pledge financial support to help keep an under-threat pool open.

Councillors have questioned why staff in neighbouring primary care trusts (PCTs) are sending patients to Shelton Pool without contributing towards its upkeep.

Physiotherapists and GPs are pointing patients from as far afield as Newcastle, Crewe, Uttoxeter and Derby in the direction of Shelton as part of their rehabilitation.

And although the patients pay to use the facilities, councillors say the authority subsidises the pool and should receive a contribution from health trusts.

It is believed the pool, threatened with closure under proposed Stoke-on-Trent City Council cost-cutting measures, is the only one in the area to have the warmer waters and access facilities needed by recovering patients.

Yet PCTs and other health commissioners are not contributing any money to the pool, which needs £500,000 of urgent repairs.

Councillor Brian Ward, deputy council leader, said he will do everything in his power to keep council-run pools in Shelton and Tunstall open.

And he called on officers to widen the search for other sources of funding to keep the pools going.

Mr Ward said: "We want to support community facilities, but I think we have got to look into finding other sources of funding in order to do that.

"In the case of Shelton Pool, the PCTs, GPs and hospitals who refer patients there for the pool's therapeutic warm water should be asked to contribute to the running costs.

"That pool needs more than £500,000 of urgent repairs and someone has got to pay for that."

Mr Ward said he had received letters from 35 people who use the pool for medical reasons, of whom only 12 lived in the city.

He said: "Some have been referred by doctors as far away as Crewe, Cheadle and Newcastle.

"I want to know why, if our pool is so important to their patients, these organisations are not paying towards its upkeep."

Many of the groups which use the Shelton Pool pay standard admission rates to do so.

But the authority has argued that admission prices are kept artificially low by its subsidies.

Charity Shelton Swimming for Therapy Club funds the £122-a-week cost of hiring the pool twice a week through membership fees, although it also receives an annual £957 subsidy from the council.

Secretary John Harbron has said he fears the 37-strong club, which has been going for 30 years and has members from across the region, would disband if the pool closed.

The 73-year-old, from Trentham, said: "We often get physiotherapists ringing up and two social workers came from Uttoxeter recently to see if it was suitable for someone.

"We are a disabled club and do not discriminate about where people come from, but councillors are right in saying that people come from outside the city; although they are paying to do so."

Councillor Debra Gratton, former portfolio holder for sport and leisure, said: "We should be setting up a council task force to look at subsidised leisure facilities and we should be looking to fund them jointly with other local councils and PCTs."

An NHS North Staffordshire spokesman said: "These appear to be informal recommendations given to people who would then pay their own costs and admission fee to use Shelton Pool."

Central and Eastern Cheshire PCT director of primary care Simon Whitehouse said it works with other organisations to ensure services are available to patients, irrespective of where they live.

He said: "The PCT has not been approached directly on this matter and any such request for funding would be considered through the normal channels."