What will be different?

We expect that around 1400 extra emergency medical patients a year from the whole of the Wakefield district would need to receive their care in Dewsbury and District Hospital to enable us to set up the orthopaedic trauma centre in Pinderfields.

That means that around 2000 emergency medical patients a year from the Wakefield district would receive their care from Dewsbury and District Hospital. This is out of around 70,000 of all the emergency patients we admit to our hospitals each year.

These are patients who arrive at hospital by a 999 ambulance, through the emergency department (A&E) or whose family doctor (GP) has referred them to hospital for urgent assessment and treatment the same day. When necessary, these patients would go straight to Dewsbury and District Hospital instead of going to Pinderfields.

When this is necessary, we will take into account a number of factors to decide where patients should be admitted. The most important will be their clinical needs and, wherever possible, we will try to minimise the distance that people need to travel.

For example, we would look at whether patients who live closer to the Dewsbury boundary (such as Ossett and Horbury) could be admitted to Dewsbury and District Hospital so that fewer patients from the other side of the Wakefield district would need to be treated in Dewsbury.

This will not affect general outpatients. We understand that people prefer to be treated as close to home as possible, and that is why the majority of emergency medical patients from Wakefield and Pontefract will be treated at Pinderfields Hospital or the Clinical Decision Unit at Pontefract Hospital.

We believe that by extending our current practice of caring for a relatively small number of emergency medical patients at Dewsbury and District Hospital we will still be able to provide them with exactly the care they need, and we can significantly improve our care for orthopaedic trauma patients.

The same quality of care will be provided, whichever of our hospitals patients are taken to. And our doctors will be able to see a patient's hospital records whichever hospital they are admitted to.