Major NHS projects axed amid cash crisis

The U-turn means building of a new 60-bed specialist surgical centre for patients with cancer and other problems at Dewsbury and District Hospital has been scrapped.

Linked plans to create a centre for orthopaedic trauma surgery in Wakefield have also been thrown into doubt but a scheme to open dedicated specialist centres for sick babies and for children's inpatient surgery in Wakefield, first proposed in 1999, will go ahead next year.

NHS bosses blamed the dire economic climate for the decision less than three months after backing the plans amid "compelling evidence" of their benefits.

The decision is the first sign of the financial crisis hitting NHS services in the region where health bosses are braced for billions of pounds of spending cuts. It will fuel fears of a return to austerity after a decade of unprecedented growth.

Hospitals began drawing up plans on where they could make savings last year after Ministers warned they would need to cut up to 20bn between 2011 and 2014, leading to warnings of savage cuts to staff and services.

The decision to scrap plans for the surgical centre will also raise question marks over the future of services in Dewsbury as well as underline concerns a new 260m hospital opening in Wakefield in the summer is already too small.

Dewsbury Labour MP Shahid Malik said the decision was disappointing, after he had been given assurances over the future of A&E care and maternity services in the town, and said he would hold talks to find ways of funding the surgical centre.

"Hopefully we might find some reconfiguration that would mean that more services come to Dewsbury," he said.

Health chiefs said the decision was taken in the "light of the current economic climate and the financial challenges now facing the NHS nationally".

Alan Wittrick, chief executive of NHS Wakefield District, said there was compelling clinical evidence that creating specialist centres would improve care and the organisation was delighted it would be able to provide specialist care for very premature and sick babies. "We are, however, extremely disappointed that we are not currently able to proceed with developing the specialist centre at Dewsbury."