Two Labour MPs have urged the health secretary to “urgently intervene” in the planned downgrading of A&E service at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary.
Re-elected Huddersfield MP Barry Sheerman and newly-elected Colne Valley MP Thelma Walker make the plea in a letter to health secretary Jeremy Hunt.
It is the latest development in a long-running row over the decision by Greater Huddersfield and Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) last October to close the A&E department as part of its Right Time Right Care Right Place proposals for local health service provision.
The shake-up will see the current HRI hospital building on Acre Street demolished, with a smaller hospital built on an adjacent site. The smaller hospital will not have an A&E. Instead, patients from across Huddersfield will have to travel to Calderdale Royal Hospital in Halifax for emergency care.
The proposals are opposed by campaigners, who have taken their case to Parliament while more than 10,000 people have signed a petition urging the government to save the A&E.
The letter from the two MPs states: “We are writing to ask that you urgently intervene in the ruinous proposals to downgrade the Accident and Emergency at the Huddersfield Royal Infirmary Hospital.
“As the newly-elected and re-elected Members for the Kirklees area, we are renewing our vow to find an alternative to the CCG’s proposals. We recognise the need for change to make our local health services the best they can be. However, we remain vehemently opposed to any proposal to downgrade Accident and Emergency from HRI.
“The Labour Party manifesto recognised the deep concern associated with such proposals and committed to review them. Constituents in Kirklees overwhelmingly showed their support for this commitment with their votes in the General Election.
“Will you now reconsider the proposed closure of the HRI Accident and Emergency?
“You have been made repeatedly aware of the real threat that this closure presents to the health and lives of our constituents. We are asking you to take stock of this threat once again, to reconsider and to intervene.”
Earlier this month, Karl Deitch, founder of the hospital campaign now called Let’s Save Huddersfield A&E, said the future of HRI’s A&E had become a “political football.”
He said the two MPs had made saving the A&E “at the heart” of their campaigns during the General Election and now had to deliver.
