MP blasts NHS plans for A&E site as ‘betrayal’

The options are among a number for a wide-ranging reconfiguration of services at the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals trust which is facing major financial difficulties.

Managers say clinicians including hospital staff and GPs have worked through 700 potential permutations but there are common features to five main “emerging options” which would establish a clear role for each of three hospitals in Wakefield, Pontefract and Dewsbury.

Plans will be further refined and could be put to a public consultation in the spring and implemented by the end of 2012.

But a proposal to downgrade the casualty unit at Pontefract Hospital to a minor illness and injury service has already been branded a “betrayal” by one MP. Four in five patients would still be treated there but the sickest would be transferred to Pinderfields Hospital, Wakefield.

Other options include centralising inpatient care for sick youngsters needing care for more than a day at Pinderfields, with dedicated assessment services for children provided at Dewsbury for those who stayed in hospital for up to 24 hours.

Planned orthopaedic surgery could be centralised at Dewsbury, with rehabilitation in Pontefract and Dewsbury, which could also provide stroke rehabilitation.

Routine eye operations could be carried out at Dewsbury and Pontefract but all three hospitals would continue to provide outpatient and day case surgery.

Three out of five options involve switching the maternity unit at Dewsbury to a midwife-led service only, with specialist doctors and neo-natal care at Pinderfields.

Work is also under way to look at how spinal injuries, neurology and neuro-rehabilitation can be provided, with the potential to move services away from Pinderfields, which is the regional centre for spinal injury care and where state-of-the-art facilities have just opened. Heart services and some cancer care are also being reviewed.

Hemsworth MP Jon Trickett said any move to downgrade A&E at Pontefract would be a “betrayal” of a pledge by NHS bosses to retain services there. Instead patients would face travelling to Wakefield where there were already “unacceptable” waits for treatment.

“It may well imperil patient safety and I don’t think it is deliverable,” he added.

Dewsbury MP Simon Reevell said the plans were at an early stage but were being clinically-led by experts.

“I am absolutely clear that Dewsbury will continue to provide the sort of services you would expect from a hospital,” he said.

Mike Potts, chief executive of NHS Calderdale, Kirklees and Wakefield primary care trust cluster, said: “Between now and next summer, we will be working with local people, partners and staff to help us review and develop a plan for the best way of providing services to meet local people’s needs.”

A&E consultant Matt Shepherd said national experts had last year raised “serious doubts” about the sustainability and safety of the casualty unit at Pontefract.

“The vast majority of people who currently use the Pontefract emergency department would continue to be able to be cared for locally in a combined minor injuries unit and urgent care centre,” he said.

Pete Macrow, head of clinical service for women’s services, said: “Creating a centre for consultant-led maternity care at Pinderfields Hospital would enable us to bring together highly-skilled and experienced teams and provide better specialist care.

“Pontefract and Dewsbury would each have a midwife-led maternity unit, so mums who are expected to have a normal birth could continue to be able to choose to give birth in their local hospital or at home.”

For more information about the plans and to put forward views go to www.kirklees.nhs.uk or ring 01422 281473.

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