SENIOR doctors at Fairfield Hospital are calling for their bosses to resign after an overwhelming majority passed a vote of no confidence in their management.

Consultants and top clinicians from the Pennine Acute NHS Trust, which runs Fairfield, want the management team to step down amid claims that targets have taken priority over providing a decent quality of care for patients.

More than 200 senior medics from Fairfield, North Manchester General, Rochdale Infirmary, Birch Hill and Royal Oldham Hospitals voted in favour of the no confidence motion. Just 34 voted against.

Up to 300 doctors - 80 of them from Fairfield - were balloted for the motion which stated the trust board had failed to behave in "an open and trustworthy" manner and establish a working environment where staff felt "valued, respected and unafraid".

Senior medical staff are also angry at not being involved in the major decisions over the development of the service.

Maternity services, including the future of the special care baby unit at Fairfield Hospital in Rochdale Old Road, are currently under the spotlight. The proposed changes have angered both staff members and the public.

There has also been a 50 per cent increase in parking charges.

Other chief points in the motion include the failure to organise an "effective and responsive management structure" as well as an "effective communication system".

The local negotiating committee, made up of the trusts senior doctors, is now calling for all board members to individually consider their positions for the sake of the patients and the service.

Don MacKechnie, an A&E consultant at Rochdale Infirmary and spokesman for the committee said: "The decisiveness of the vote is an indication of the widespread despair about the way the trust is being managed across all four sites.

"The trust board have, in the opinion of the senior medical body, jeopardised the quality of patient care the clinicians are able to offer to the local population by their mismanagement and a continuing reluctance to engage in meaningful dialogue with staff.

"A management that has lost the confidence, not only of its senior medical staff but also the rest of its workforce, puts itself in an untenable position."

The ballot follows a union vote earlier this month when 33 shop stewards representing 7,000 staff passed a no confidence vote against the executive members of the board.

The vote, taken at Fairfield on June 1, was prompted by the result of a staff attitude survey showing morale was at an all-time low and staff did not feel informed or involved in the decision making.

It is believed to be the only time that hospital consultants and trade unions have linked up in this way.

Peter Hinchliffe, trade union convenor for the trust based at North Manchester General Hospital, said: "We support the consultants 100 per cent and are very pleased they returned a similar result to our own vote of no confidence. This shows that what we have been saying is true - that staff of all grades are fed up.

"We want to see a change in management. The existing mangement have completely lost the confidence of their employees and we need a clean sweep with a new board who can have the confidence of employees.

"They are going to have to listen in the face of such opposition."

A trust spokesman responded that they recognised targets put pressure on staff. He said: "We appreciate the contributions and effort made by all levels of staff to help us meet targets.

"They are set nationally and do broadly reflect the issues which many patients raise with us, such as time taken for treatment. A review of the targets is currently going on and we look forward to the outcome of that with a great deal of interest."

Pennine Acute Trust chief executive Chris Appleby said in a statement: "Naturally, we're disappointed with the result. Both the chairman and myself have previously offered detailed discussions around the specific points of issue, and we would re-iterate that offer."

l Four years ago Fairfield Hospital was hit by another crisis after 13 consultants broke their professional silence to publicly apologise for letting their patients down.

In a letter - signed by the consultants and sent exclusively to the Bury Times in March 2001- they described their "sense of failure" and the poor morale of staff.

It began: "It is with deepest regret that we feel compelled to communicate our sense of failure in serving the population of Bury..."

The doctors, acute medical consultants with the former Bury Health Care NHS Trust, blamed lack of funding as the reason behind Fairfield and Bury General Hospitals having one of the lowest number of doctors and nurses per 100 beds in the country.

The letter praised the "outstanding dedication and calibre of the few staff we have" before adding: "The seriousness of what we have written demonstrates how poor morale is in that we feel obliged to break our professional silence."