New call for NHS chiefs

about the future of the hospitals, and should resign.

And he has questioned why the publicity-shy Mr Williams has not been trying to persuade people of the benefits of hospital reconfiguration.

Mr Williams declined to comment to the Examiner on Mr Ramsden’s second call for his head.

Meanwhile, health policy expert and former advisor to Margaret Thatcher’s government, Professor Peter Bradshaw, also slammed the revised proposal as “dismal” and “cosmetic”.

Prof Bradshaw, Emeritus Professor in Health Policy at Huddersfield University, said the latest documents by HRI chiefs were little more than “word magic” or “verbal embroidery”.

In a blistering assault on Huddersfield’s health chiefs, the experienced NHS executive lashed out at the latest proposals. “They’re trying to pull the wool over people’s eyes - I’m not impressed. It’s very similar to the original plan,” he said. “It’s not a proper A&E service but what’s significant is they’re still planning to move acute services to Halifax, diminishing the role of the A&E in Huddersfield.

“It’s almost a by stealth arrangement.

“If they get away with this you can see in a short period of time they will be saying the Huddersfield one is unsustainable and we need to close this so-called A&E. “I’m more than sceptical. “Also, if they can come up with this now when they said they couldn’t staff it before, what’s changed?

“Why are they now saying they can run it when originally they said they couldn’t?

“One has to question the voracity of what they’re saying.

“They’re trying to pull the wool over people’s eyes - I’m not impressed.”

Mr Ramsden said people should not get their hopes up over the plans to invest £10m in the infirmary’s A&E and intensive care unit .

“They have to invest in maintenance of the investing infrastructure,” he said.

“They haven’t got the authority, or indeed a plan, to move things to Halifax yet, so they are forced to invest to keep services going as long as they are required to run them in Huddersfield.

“Routine maintenance is not investment, nothing to get excited about.”

Commenting on Kirklees Council’s idea of an all new hospital between Huddersfield and Dewsbury , he said: “I commend them for that.

“That’s the kind of thinking the trust and the CCG should have been doing.

“The CCG and the trust have come up with their plan that they wanted all along and they can’t see anything else, they’re wedded to it, they’re totally blinkered.

“Any NHS management worth its while should be looking at the council’s plan very seriously.”

Mr Ramsden said he remained cynical about the hospital trust’s widely reported staffing problems.

Hospital chiefs have confessed they are pumping millions into buying agency doctors and nurses amid ongoing issues with permanent recruitment.