Yorkshire campaigners call for NHS reforms

NHS ACTION groups will call for greater scrutiny of the way hospital services are reorganised when they meet MPs today.

Campaigners from Kirklees will be among those lobbying MPs at the House of Commons in an event hosted by Dewsbury MP Paula Sherriff, who has claimed services at her town’s hospital are being “downgraded”.

A shake-up of services by Mid Yorkshire Hospitals Trust came into force a year ago and means critically-ill emergency patients are diverted to Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield.

Mid Yorkshire has insisted Dewsbury A&E remains open around the clock and is staffed by a consultant and specialist doctors. But campaigners say the changes were driven by the need to cut costs and have left patients with too far to travel to hospital.

Christine Hyde, of North Kirklees Support the NHS, said: “It has created huge problems for the most vulnerable groups – housebound patients, infants, children with disabilities and patients with life-threatening illnesses like cancer.”

The campaigners are calling for reforms to the current system of oversight, under which council scrutiny committees can refer planned changes to hospital services to the Health Secretary.

Action groups from Lincolnshire, West Yorkshire, Devon, Northumberland, Dorset and Oxfordshire will be at today’s event in London.