The Mancunian Way: Ready for Nerdvana

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Here's the Mancunian Way for today:

Hello,

Not sure what you’ll all be doing this weekend but I’ll be spending at least some of it at Festwich - Prestwich’s number one (and only) tribute band festival.

Frankly I’d go just for the names alone. After all, where else can you see ‘Hi on Maiden’, ‘Nerdvana’ and ‘Alanis Moreorless’? Hopefully the weather stays relatively pleasant for ‘Guns or Roses’ - we don’t want anything resembling November Rain.

On to the news. In today’s edition, we’ll be taking a look at the unexpected costs landing Manchester Council with a big overspend and we’ll be discussing the deadly sex party drug exploding in popularity in Manchester.

But first, I want to look at a very important story about Manchester’s maternity units and why a health watchdog has told bosses they must make urgent improvements. Let’s begin.

Maternity care at three Manchester hospitals is now said to be ‘inadequate’ as inspectors downgraded the services and warned bosses to make urgent improvements ‘to protect people and babies from coming to harm’.

The health watchdog found the standard of care had ‘deteriorated’ in a damning inspection of the maternity units at Saint Mary's Hospital, Wythenshawe Hospital and North Manchester General.

As health reporter Helena Vesty writes, regulators were especially concerned during a visit in March that initial assessments - known as triaging - took too long meaning ‘opportunities to prevent or minimise harm were missed’. Delays and cancellations to planned Caesareans or surgical births,