Protesters to the controversial plan to shut HRI and switch its A&E to Calderdale fear health chiefs may now want to switch health services to Leeds and Bradford after their original plan was given the red light by the Government.
That would be a nightmare scenario for many Huddersfield patients but one that campaigners fear could happen and they have urged health chiefs to work closely with them to come up with a proposal that meets the needs of local people in a fast-changing NHS system.
Mike Ramsden, chairman of campaign group Let’s Save HRI and the former chairman of Hull and East Yorkshire Hospital Trust, said he fears that those behind the scheme will now claim that “local services now have to transfer to Bradford and Leeds because there is no alternative.”
Under the Right Care Right Time Right Place plan Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust and Greater Huddersfield and Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Groups drew up plans to flatten HRI and build a new smaller centre near Acre Mills while moving accident and emergency to Calderdale Royal Hospital in Halifax.
The plans – which met widespread opposition – were branded “unsafe.”
Health chiefs put the cost of their plans at £478.8 million and admitted they would need money from the Government.
The plans were referred to Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt by Kirklees Council’s joint health scrutiny committee who passed it to an Independent Reconfiguration Panel (IRP).
The panel has now reported back to Mr Hunt saying there was a “wide variety of failings”. It warned that there were concerns over out-of-hospital care and the loss of beds.
It also said that it was “not clear” that funding for such a plan would be available.
The IRP, however, agreed that “maintaining the status quo” – i.e keeping two hospitals – was not an option and that further detailed consultation was needed.
Mr Hunt said he had accepted the advice of the IRP and has sent the plans back to the drawing board.
Mr Ramsden said: “So the people who led this flawed process (the chairs, CEOs and boards of two CCGs and the hospitals trust) are now being required to put forward further plans for the long term future of local health services.
“They have been given a three month deadline so good luck to them. The simple reality is that they have so far failed in their most basic responsibility - to plan and manage health services which meet the needs of local people.
“So it would seem inconceivable that, having spent years and hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers money pursuing their self-declared pioneering plans they can now put something credible together, which will command public confidence, within the next 90 days.
“A trusted and respected senior management team faced with this situation would hold their hands up and acknowledge that they got things wrong; that they must now work with local people to identify how local services should be developed to meet the changing needs of local people in a fast changing NHS.
“Can we hope that such an approach will come forward from local NHS leaders or will we instead hear claims that local services now have to transfer to Bradford and Leeds because there is no alternative? Many people expect the latter based on what has happened so far. But let’s see. We are entitled to expect much better of those who are entrusted with the running of our services. We must be prepared to work with them, given the chance, but we must hold them to account for their failings. They have one last chance.”
