A PLEA has been made for more consultation into plans for foundation hospital status for the Huddersfield Royal Infirmary.

Mr John Chilton, chairman of the GP and nurse-led South Huddersfield Primary Care Trust, said current debates were taking place before all the information was in place.

The Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Trust, which runs the Infirmary and Calderdale Royal Hospital in Halifax, is considering applying for foundation hospital status in December.

Mr Chilton made his comment at a board meeting in Holmfirth Civic Hall.

"The fact is that there are still a lot of aspects of foundation status that need to be clarified," he said.

"The consultation is taking place at a time when we cannot get answers to straightforward legitimate questions."

Mr Chilton said consultation should take place when all the details were in place, not when they were half finished.

Earlier at the meeting, Mr John Lawlor, director for service improvement at the Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Trust, said the Bill that would create foundation hospitals was still going through Parliament and was being debated in the House of Lords.

He said that the trust needed to submit its final application by December 12.

An independent regulator would decide which of the 25 hospital trusts seeking foundation status should be granted it. Mr Lawlor added that Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Trust had not made up its mind about going forward with the application.

Mr Lawlor said a print run of 40,000 summaries had been made in a bid to tell the public what was known about the status application.

Answering criticisms that more could be issued for the public, he said that the Department of Health had granted the trust £100,000 to conduct public consultation into the issue.

"That was spent by the end of September," he added.

"We did not want to spend money that could be going to patient care."

Mrs Margaret Dale, non-executive director, said: "There is so much still unclear. There is so much out of control of the local trust anyway.

"The issues are being determined at a national level."

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