NHS Trust to discuss losing hundreds of beds

The Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust will hold a meeting today to discuss controversial cost-cutting plans.

They include getting rid of two hundred hospital beds and downgrading an A and E department in West Yorkshire.

The Trust faces a £26m deficit at the end of the financial year.

Plans to be discussed at Ossett Town Hall at 10am involve downgrading Pontefract and Dewsbury A&E units to centres providing urgent care for minor injures, while Pinderfields would keep its consultant-led A&E and treat more emergencies.

Health bosses will decide whether to put it out to public consultation at the meeting.

A study by NHS analysts last year found higher than expected death rates at the district’s hospitals.

The Dr Foster Hospital Guide found that Mid Yorkshire, which runs Pinderfields, Pontefract and Dewsbury hospitals, had an above average Hospital Standardised Mortality Ratio (HSMR) - an overall measure of deaths while in hospital care.

Mid Yorkshire’s score for 2011-12 was 108 against a national average of 100.

It was also revealed last year the NHS Trust was losing £100,000 a day through inefficiency.

It needs to save £24m by April.