Future of Calderdale A&E revealed in business plan

The Outline Business Case has now officially revealed the proposed changes to the A and E services at Calderdale Royal Hospital and Huddersfield Royal Infirmary.

The plan confirms two scenarios that will happen. Huddersfield Royal Infirmary will be the site for acute and emergency care and Calderdale Royal Hospital as the site for planned hospital care - or have the services the other way around.

A spokesperson for the Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust said: “At the time the document was written, the information in the Outline Business Case regarding proposals to change the way in which community and hospital services were configured was potentially commercially sensitive and therefore had to be confidential and known only to the key decision-makers at the Clinical Commissioning Groups in Calderdale and Greater Huddersfield (CCGs).

“Since then the CCGs have said that the immediate focus is on the community services only and their approach to this is in the public domain.

“Content of the OBC is therefore no longer confidential.

“As we have been asked for a copy by a number of parties we felt the simplest way forward would be to make it publicly available on our website.

“There is no change to the current position in relation to the plans for local health services.”

Over the past two years the health and social care organisations across Calderdale and Greater Huddersfield have been working together to review and develop proposals to improve services.

As a result of this work Calderdale and Huddersfield Foundation Trust, Locala Community partnerships and South West Yorkshire Partnership Foundation Trust developed a joint Strategic Outline Case describing proposals for service change.

This Outline Business Case (OBC) builds on the Strategic Outline Case and describes the strategic, economic, commercial, financial and management cases for the development of NHS community and hospital services for the people living in the footprint ofCalderdale and Greater Huddersfield Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs).

Today NHS chiefs publish details of an outline business case which recommended consulting the public over two options to centre key services in either Huddersfield or Halifax.

But it also raises a series of problems with the Calderdale Royal Hospital site among them that in contrast to Huddersfield’s infirmary, it has little space for expansion and that its construction under the private finance initiative made changes more costly.

It said people living south and east of Huddersfield could choose to go to Barnsley or Sheffield for care if Huddersfield was downgraded. Some people from Calderdale could go elsewhere if the Halifax hospital was downgraded but officials said this would be compensated for by more patients from Denby Dale, Holmfirth and Penistone heading to Huddersfield.

Under the plans, one hospital would become a centre for planned care. The report said the Halifax site was also suitable for residential home provision and a hospice “as an additional source of income”.