Axeing A&E services and ferrying patients to other hospitals could lead to more patient deaths in transit.

That’s the stark warning of campaigners who claim a new study highlights the potentially fatal combination of closing local A&Es and extending journey times to other sites.

The research by academics at Sheffield University has been seized on by activists. They say it is further evidence that proposals - still on the table - to downgrade accident and emergency provision at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary are fatally flawed.

The report, funded by the National Institute for Health Research, analysed A&Es across England.

The sites - Rochdale, Newark, Hartlepool, Bishop Auckland and Hemel Hempstead - were all downgraded between 2009 and 2011. Researchers made an evaluation of their efficiency over a four-year period, both before they were downgraded and after.

The study showed that some emergency 999 patients faced a 25-minute delay for treatment.

And in areas where A&Es had been shut or downgraded paramedics found journey times increased by an average of nine minutes.

The authors said there was evidence to suggest that there had been changes in ambulance activity following the closure of emergency departments as well as an increase in the time taken to get to hospital.

An ambulance near to St Peter's Church in Huddersfield town centre

There was further evidence to suggest a risk of people dying following an emergency problem, though this was “small.”

Patients were also exposed to “disruption” and “anxiety” over the cutbacks.

Campaigners against cutbacks at HRI said the new research added weight to their own concerns around journey times if Huddersfield was to lose its A&E department.

And they warned there would be deaths en-route, contradicting the opinion of local clinical commissioning groups and Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust, which said the single expert care team on hand would deal with A&E transfers.

“Every minute spent travelling is an increased risk to a patient,” said Mike Forster, chairman of Hands Off HRI.

“Maternity services at Huddersfield were closed in 2006. Two years later a baby died in transit between Huddersfield and Halifax. The same will happen again.”

Referring to the frequent traffic jams that clog up the Elland Bypass and the dual carriageway into Halifax, he said time critical journeys were not improving.

“The traffic network between Huddersfield and Halifax has significantly deteriorated since 2008.

Hands Off HRI campaigner Mike Forster
Hands Off HRI campaigner Mike Forster

“Hold-ups on the M62 are getting worse by the day. The bypass is constantly log-jammed. Things are not getting better.”

Campaigners have carried out their own travel and transport review with volunteers taking random journeys at different times and from different locations between Huddersfield and Halifax.

They plan on presenting that evidence to solicitors, along with the academic research, to ratchet up pressure on NHS bosses who continue to press for a split A&E service in which Huddersfield people requiring acute inpatient admission will be transferred by ambulance to Halifax.