Health bosses have approved the Full Business Case (FBC) that may decide the future of Huddersfield Royal Infirmary.
It will now be submitted to regulator NHS Improvement, formerly Monitor, for scrutiny.
The decision, taken at Calderdale Royal Hospital at the monthly meeting of the Board of Directors of Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust, was greeted with fury by supporters of the Let’s Save HRI campaign.
Nicola Jowett, Let’s Save HRI’s campaign secretary, who was present at the meeting, called for senior figures within both the Trust and NHS Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group to resign.
“It’s clear that in pushing these proposals through they are making a serious error of judgement,” she said.
“They have not questioned the discrepancies in the numbers of hospital beds. That is either a serious error of judgement or a deliberate attempt to mislead the public in the consultation.
“They are equally culpable. It’s time that they considered their positions.”
Addressing the meeting, chief executive Owen Williams acknowledged public concerns about the planned changes to HRI but said it was crucial to find the right balance between planned care and unplanned care so as to minimise risk as far as possible.
And he revealed that any new hospital would have to be funded through a Private Funding Initiative (PFI) despite widespread condemnation of PFIs, which have been blamed for dragging the UK into crippling debt totalling hundreds of billions of pounds.
“At this moment in time there is no public money available to borrow,” he said.
“If we had lots of other choices perhaps we would be looking to exercise some of those choices but given the options available we are left with using a PFI. It’s not something that we are advocating lightly.”
Professor Peter Roberts said the FBC represented “the best overall value that we can achieve in terms of delivering a quality of service that is absolutely vital.” He warned against further delays, which could push up capital costs by 10% every year.
Hospital governor George Richardson asked what might happen if Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt turned down the proposals. “The one thing that the public keeps saying is that we don’t need a new hospital. If we don’t get the new build where will we be in ten years’ time?”
Mr Williams said there was a need to move forward now to prevent an unacceptable decision by government.
