A councillor told hospital shake-up chiefs she was ‘narked’ with them for failing to provide A&E travel times by area.

And health scrutiny panel member, Clr Jane Scullion, implied that local NHS bosses could have used Google Maps to calculate the times it would take an ambulance to reach Calderdale Royal Hospital (CRH).

The Calderdale councillor made the remarks at a Kirklees and Calderdale joint scrutiny panel meeting on Wednesday.

The panel is reviewing the Right Care Right Time Right Place plan which will close Huddersfield’s A&E and centralise emergency care at CRH, Halifax.

If the panel is unhappy with the proposal it may refer it to Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt.

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In a response to questions posed by scrutiny councillors the CCGs (clinical commissioning groups) behind the plan admitted: “We do not know absolute travel times for people accessing care in an ambulance or for people accessing planned care via public transport.”

Emergency travel times emerged as the primary concern in an official report of a public consultation on the plan.

Clr Scullion said: “I am a bit narked about the lack of travel times from specific areas.”

The Labour councillor for Luddenden then told Kirklees and Calderdale health bosses that she had used Google Maps to work out journey times.

According to a study commissioned by authors of the plan, there will be ‘no significant disproportionate impacts’ on travel times if emergency services closed at either Huddersfield Royal Infirmary (HRI) or Calderdale Royal Hospital (CRH), Halifax.

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But there were 4,700 blue light ambulance journeys from areas with HD7, HD8 and HD9 postcodes to Huddersfield Royal Infirmary’s (HRI) accident and emergency department, last year, according to figures obtained under Freedom of Information.

That includes villages across the Holme Valley, the Colne Valley and the Dearne Valley.

This has prompted concerns as to whether ambulance travel times, from outlying areas of Huddersfield to the emergency care centre at CRH, will be dangerously long.

A decision on whether the plan will proceed is expected on October 20.