The Mid Yorkshire hospital trust covers three hospitals – Wakefield (Pinderfields), Pontefract, and Dewsbury District. Last year the Hospital Trust consulted on a proposal to provide specialist care for very premature and very sick babies, and children’s in-patient surgery only at Wakefield. For Dewsbury hospital, the proposal was for a new specialist centre for bowel cancers which would use world class robotic surgery.

This set of proposals was attractive to people in the Dewsbury hospital area. The “loss” of the very specialist children’s services to Wakefield was balanced by the “gain” of having a very high tech and specialist cancer service.

Today, the NHS have stated that the children’s services will go to Wakefield but the specialist cancer service will not now be provided in Dewsbury. It makes the consultation a bit of a sham. The people served by Dewsbury Hospital have been thoroughly let down by this decision.