Councillors have admitted they are powerless to stop a public consultation on a plan which could close Huddersfield’s A&E.

Campaigners urged Kirklees and Calderdale councillors to halt a ‘meaningless’ public consultation for the Right Care Right Time Right Place proposal at a health scrutiny panel meeting on Monday.

At the meeting at Halifax Town Hall opponents of the plan told panel members that the consultation was ‘illegal’ and did not reflect local health needs.

Jenny Shepherd, of Kirklees and Calderdale 999 Call for the NHS, said: “We call on the committee to stop the consultation now by immediately referring it to the Secretary of State.

“The consultation document is flawed and contrary to the health needs of the population of Kirklees and Calderdale.”

Huddersfield peolpw give their views on the closure of HRI's A&E below

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Ms Shepherd added that the consultation was ‘meaningless’ and would have little bearing on the final plans.

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But panel chair, Clr Malcolm James, said the committee had no legal power to stop the consultation.

Clr James said: “We have no power to stop the process.

“Therefore as we have no power we are not going to try to stop it.”

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The start date of the 14-week public consultation is yet to be announced, although local NHS bosses have indicated it could be the end of this month.

Under Right Care Right Time Right Place A&E services at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary will be closed and the nearest emergency services will be provided at Calderdale Royal Hospital, Halifax.

Health chiefs have estimated that the average blue light journey to an emergency department will increase from 15.94 minutes to 22.42 minutes.

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But they argue that concentrating emergency services in one hospital will give patients ‘a better chance of a good recovery’.

At the meeting, however, campaigner Paul Cooney accused health bosses of excluding academic research that demonstrated the link between longer journey times and increased deaths.

Mr Cooney, of Huddersfield Keep Our NHS Public, said: “By only reporting average journey time, the consultation document avoids telling people in the most remote parts of Kirklees what their ambulance travel time would be and what effect that would have on expected increases in patients’ deaths.”