Hands Off Huddersfield Royal Infirmary

A walk from St Georges Square, Huddersfield (just outside the train station) around the town centre. This is to demonstrate disapproval of plans to close, bulldoze HRI and build a small urgent care centre across the road. It will mean there is no Grade One A&E in the whole of Kirklees, putting further pressure on Oldham, Halifax, Pinderfields, Barnsley and Leeds hospitals, plus increased journey times and use of ambulances. That will definitely not be good for people in Huddersfield. Or Manchester...we heard at the public meeting, a patient from Huddersfield ended up in Stockport hospital! And that's before the closure! It may be that Oldham its self is due to be downgraded as a result of the Devolution proposals. For further details re Huddersfield:-

http://www.examiner.co.uk/news/west-yorkshire-news/hands-hri-campaigners-plan-one-10916110

1. A recent big 2014 Californian study showed the negative impact of A&E closures not only on the places where they had closed, but also on the neighbouring A&Es. This study - California Emergency Department Closures Are Associated With Increased Inpatient Mortality At Nearby Hospitals, by Charles Liu, Tanja Srebotnjak and Renee Y. Hsia (doi: 10.1377/hlthaff.2013.1203 Health Aff August 2014 vol. 33 no. 8 1323-1329) found that when a nearby A&E closes, the inpatient death rate in hospitals that still have an A&E goes up. Patients who still had a local A&E department had 5 percent higher odds of inpatient mortality than admissions not occurring near a closure. This was because of overcrowding from a neighbouring area where the A&E had closed.

2 Two academic studies – reported in the Journal of Emergency Medicine and the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery – have also found that that increased distance to A&E is associated with increased risk of death.