Verdict on hospital shake-up due in weeks

HEALTH chiefs will decide next month on the controversial future shape of hospital services for more than half a million people in the region.

Full A&E and maternity services face the axe at Dewsbury and District Hospital under proposals to radically re-shape NHS services in the Wakefield, Pontefract and Dewsbury areas.

Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield is likely to become the main centre for emergency care in the area, with planned treatment carried out at Dewsbury and Pontefract, and enhanced health and social care services provided outside hospital.

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Hundreds of people responded to a public consultation on plans which finished last week.

Officials say the changes will save more lives and provide better care and services to patients in the area where the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust is mired in a long-standing financial crisis which is expected to mean it will remain in the red until 2016.

GP Phil Earnshaw, chairman of the NHS Wakefield Clinical Commissioning Group, said: “I am grateful to everyone who has taken part and told us their views. We will take full account of all the feedback we have received during this process.”

All the responses are being analysed by independent experts who will publish a report later this month which will be used to draw up recommendations for health chiefs about the shape of services at meetings due to be held in public on July 25.