Hospital downgraded in NHS revamp

Health chiefs have revealed plans to downgrade Bridlington hospital so that it will no longer treat heart patients or medical emergencies - reports the BBC.

The site will become a community hospital under proposals announced by the Scarborough and North East Yorkshire Primary Care Trust (PCT).

Cardiac and acute patients will instead be treated at Hull or Scarborough.

Elsewhere in East Yorkshire, the NHS received news of a £20m funding boost, including a new hospital in Beverley.

However, this extra money - while welcome - is little more than a day's worth of money the government now pays into the EU's audit-failing budget at £115 million every single week.

The government investment will also fund a new healthcare facility in Hornsea and major refurbishment work at Driffield's Albert Bean Hospital.

So imagine what could be achieved with the equivalent of just one more day's payment to the EU, if our massive financial contribution to that audit-failing organisation were diverted instead to essential health services.

The investment is the largest single award in the latest wave of the Department of Health's £750m capital investment programme for community hospitals and services (NHS improvements being worth only six and a half weeks' worth of our payments to the EU, in the government's eyes).

On the future role of Bridlington Hospital, the Scarborough and North Yorkshire PCT said: "During the public consultation run by the trust earlier this year the support and passion for Bridlington Hospital was extremely well voiced by local people.

"Whilst recognising the level of public interest and concern...it would be neither prudent clinically, professionally nor financially to maintain services in their current format in the long term.

"Overall the number of patients served by both hospitals [Bridlington and Scarborough] is relatively small and having services duplicated across sites affects future sustainability of those services."

In September, health union officials warned that if the cardiac unit at Bridlington was closed, lives would be put at risk as patients would have to travel further for treatment.

Earlier this year, the trust revealed it intended to cut 600 jobs in an attempt to reduce its £20m deficit and cut costs.

But the losses were averted at the last minute after an agreement was reached between the trust and the strategic health authority to write off the debts.

Yorkshire: NHS chiefs tackled over job cuts

Union officials are to meet NHS bosses for talks over cost-cutting measures that could see hundreds of jobs axed at Scarborough and Bridlington hospitals, in Yorkshire.

Scarborough and North East Yorkshire NHS Trust, which runs the hospitals, needs to plug a £15m shortfall in its budget by cutting 600 jobs.

Ward closures and reductions in non-clincal support services are also threatened.

Unison said it feared the job cuts could be as high as 1,000 out of a total workforce of 2,500.

Brenda Lloyd, Unison's branch secretary, said: "How can they hope to provide good health services to people in this area with this level of cuts?"

Bridlington: Axe falls on mental health wards

A mental health ward is to close at Bridlington Hospital within weeks, and a second could close in three years - reports the BBC.

The Humber Mental Health NHS Trust said it was planning to treat more patients in their homes.

Mick Pilling, who is leading a campaign to save the hospital, said it was "another nail in the coffin, another much-needed service gone."

Last November it emerged the hospital's maternity unit is to close as the local NHS trust tackles £7m of overspending.

Hospital bosses had said mothers-to-be in the town would be encouraged to opt for home births.

Now officials at the mental health trust, which runs the threatened Waters Ward in Bridlington, said home treatment for older patients would replace in-patient services.

They said the Waters Ward would close in the autumn, with beds transferring to Castle Hill Hospital at Cottingham, near Hull.

Officials said that either the Buckrose Ward at the hospital or Bartholomew House at Goole would also close, probably within three to five years.

Mr Pilling added: "Waters Ward will close in the autumn and be taken to Castle Hill by all accounts.

The mental health trust said some patients would eventually be treated at a new facility to be built in the East Riding.

The mental health trust is part of the bigger Scarborough and North East Yorkshire NHS Trust which earlier this month announced it was to axe 600 jobs - a third of its workforce - at two Yorkshire hospitals.

The trust, which runs hospitals in Scarborough and Bridlington, plans to close wards and reduce non-clinical support services to save £15m.

Union officials had said the cuts would have a "devastating" impact on patients.

The trust's chief executive, Iain McInnes, said the trust needed to work "more efficiently, with fewer positions".

Bridlington & Scarborough: NHS trust announces 600 job cuts

The Scarborough and North East Yorkshire NHS Trust has announced that it is to axe 600 jobs, comprising a third of its workforce, in a bid to save £10m and balance its books - the BBC reports today.

The cuts are the latest in a long series of similar actions by NHS trusts across the country, being forced when cost over-runs are not being met with extra funds from central government.

The government is finding the cash, however, to gift an extra £2.5bn a year (net) to the wasteful European Union (which already receives £3.5bn a year on average). Yet The EU hasn't been able to have the majority of its accounts approved by auditors for twelve years in a row.

Latest figures from the NHS Information Centre show that 17,000 posts have been closed in the last 12 months alone.

The North Yorkshire trust runs Scarbrough General and Bridlington District hospitals.

Unison regional officer Ray Gray has condemned the huge cuts in staff levels as a "disaster" for health services in the area.

"Job losses on this scale are completely unsustainable. It would devastate the NHS in this part of Yorkshire and have a profoundly damaging effect on the local economy", he said.

"How the trust has ended up in this dire situation is a matter of grave concern and we are seeking urgent talks with the Secretary of State for Health to find a way of saving the jobs and the health service in the Scarborough district."