At the 21 October Calderdale and Kirklees Joint Health Scrutiny Committee (JHSC) meeting, Councillors asked questions about a proposal for Calderdale A&E to close temporarily at short notice if there was:
“an urgent need on the grounds of safety to temporarily close one of the A&E sites”.
Members of the public are unimpressed by this proposal. A comment on the Save Calderdale Royal Infirmary facebook group asked:
“How is it SAFER for Calderdale people to have to travel to Huddersfield in an emergency? Might be ‘safer’ for the Trust, so they don’t fall foul of target numbers of staff they are supposed to have on site, but I don’t think it’s safer for the patients! What’s the point of cutting waiting times if journey times are twice as long? From Todmorden it will not be possible to get to an A&E (either Blackburn or Huddersfield) in under 40 mins. That is UNSAFE!”