Save Calderdale Royal Hospital campaign is clear that Mr Allott’s and Mr Whittaker’s recent claims about the Calderdale NHS shake-up are misleading and ill-informed.
Katherine Horner, a Save Calderdale Royal Hospital campaigner, said:
“Its quite simple, we carry on with the Save Calderdale Royal Hospital campaign because the threat to our A&E hasn’t gone away.”
Before Christmas, Mr Whittaker sent all his constituents a leaflet where he claimed:
“There are no plans to close our A&E….Fact: There is nothing in the proposals which suggests that Halifax Accident & Emergency Department will close.”
But shortly before Mr Whittaker’s leaflet went out, the hospitals Trust finally made public their Outline Business Case (OBC) for the shake up of hospital and community NHS services in Calderdale and Greater Huddersfield.
The OBC comes down on the side of making Calderdale Royal Hospital the small planned care hospital, carrying out planned treatments like hip or knee operations, with only 85 of its current 350 beds in use and no A&E, just a Minor Injuries Unit that would see around 22,500 patients a year.
24/7 acute and A&E care would be at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary. This would include trauma, major surgery, critical care, acute & specialist medicine, inpatient paediatric services and complex maternity services.
Soon after Mr Whittaker sent his leaflet to Calder Valley households, Mr Allott sent Halifax voters a letter containing the unfounded claim that Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group has rejected the hospitals Trust proposal to turn one of our hospitals into a small planned care hospital with a Minor Injuries Unit and the other into a specialised acute hospital with an A&E Department.
Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group’s (CCG) Governing Body Chair, Dr Alan Brook, told the 30th October 2014 Calderdale Health and Wellbeing Board that the CCG had decided not to consult the public about proposals in the hospital Trust’s Outline Business Case – because “it needs more work”.
But as far as we can find out, the CCG has at no time said that this means it has rejected the Trust’s proposals.
Save Calderdale Royal Hospital campaign is not party political but we want to let the Calderdale public know that in our opinion, Mr Whittaker and Mr Allott have put out ill- informed and misleading information.
The campaign goes on! Please join us for our next big public event and help to lovebomb Calderdale Royal Hospital on Valentines Day.