Campaign groups have vowed to fight “tooth and nail” to block the closure of an A&E unit.
Health leaders have urged for calm and a sensible debate after they revealed a radical shake-up of services in Huddersfield and Calderdale – which include an option to have just one casualty ward.
The possibility that both Huddersfield Royal Infirmary (HRI) and Calderdale Royal Hospital (CRH) could have their A&E departments downgraded has also been put on the table.
But despite the message that nothing has been agreed, campaigners are mobilising to retain things as they are – something that health chiefs say is “unlikely”.
With hospital chiefs admitting their preference for closing CRH’s A&E ward, the loudest opposition has been coming from Calderdale.
Colne Valley MP Jason McCartney has also said he will fight to keep both hospitals’ A&Es.
Mr McCartney has applied for an urgent debate in parliament on the matter and said, for patients, location is the most important issue.
“Geographical locations of services can be really important,” he said.
“If it snows up in Marsden or Holme, both villages on the edge of the patch, it could take an hour to get to Halifax.
“You can’t just say it’s seven miles and it’s quick to get there – geography is almost the most important thing to people.”
Health chiefs say the plan will save £50m but Mr McCartney said he didn’t buy into the need for millions of pounds of cuts.
He added: “The NHS is better funded than ever; more is being spent this year than last year and more than ever under the previous Labour government.
“I know the clinicians, for the sake of better outcomes, prefer specialised facilities in fewer centres, but that’s not about money.
“This is just another example of a whole series of reconfigurations of services that are going on nationwide.
“But I know what I want for this area, I don’t know if other MPs use HRI but I used it when I fractured my elbow doing the Honley 10K and my family also use it.
“It’s in my constituency and I want to keep it as it is.“
Calderdale Council Liberal Democrat Group Leader, Clr Janet Battye, said: “The changes suggested will affect real services provided to benefit real people.
“It is not some managerial scheme that can be left to ‘experts’.
“By giving us a summary of what they call the ‘proposed future service model’, hares have been set running and people’s worst fears aroused.
“They should have known that their proposals would cause alarm locally about the future of the Accident and Emergency Services at Calderdale Royal Hospital.
“Some of the changes and improvements do sound useful and interesting – the promotion of self care and integrated support, the notions of Locality Teams and Community Hubs – but we all need to be reassured that we can get emergency medical treatment within easy reach.
“For most people in Calderdale, this means Halifax.”
Members of the Huddersfield Keep Our NHS Public branch pledged to fight the proposals, denouncing them as an attack on vital services.
Dr Richard Murgatroyd, said: “These plans to cut our services are being driven purely for financial reasons and are part of the overall strategy of the Government’s aims to reduce the NHS and privatise services.
“Together with other community organisations across Huddersfield and Halifax, we will campaign strongly against the plans and we aim to unite all the people of the area to protest about them and to fight them.
“Local NHS directors should be standing up for the people they are supposed to serve and fighting Government plans, rather than helping them cut our services.
“If they thought that they can simply get away with this, they had better think again.”
Huddersfield’s top GP has stressed the plan to re-jig health care, possibly axing an A&E unit in the process, is necessary.
In a message to colleagues, chairman of Greater Huddersfield CCG, Dr Steve Ollerton said cuts needed to be made across the whole of the NHS.
Health chiefs hope their plans to reduce the amount of hospital care and provide more community care will save £50m.
Dr Ollerton said: “From the CCG’s perspective as service commissioners, this is the beginning of a lengthy process of wide-ranging discussion about the five options put forward.
“As GPs and member practices, we will have a major role to play in engaging with our patients and public to make sure their views are known, listened to and reflected in the final proposals which will go to formal consultation.
“The CCG’s position is that we recognise the need to make efficiency savings across the whole health economy.
“We believe this is best achieved by developing a robust programme for moving more services into local community settings, closer to patients’ homes and harnessing the power of new technology to help people stay as well as possible for as long as possible in their own homes.
“We will continue to work with providers to achieve this.”
Dr Ollerton said staff would be well briefed and fellow GPs would be included in discussions about the future.
“This is the start, not the end, of an important debate,” he added.
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