A COUNCIL has urged NHS bosses to remember promises made to residents when the Friarage Hospital’s paediatric and maternity services were downgraded - following fears the next nearest hospital services could also be reduced.

The future of services at Darlington Memorial Hospital are being looked at under the Better Health Programme, which involves potential reform of NHS acute services across northern parts of North Yorkshire, the Tees Valley and South Durham.

North Yorkshire County Council has formally asked the NHS to take account the needs of its residents and communities, especially those in remote, rural areas who were already travelling some distance to reach services at Darlington Memorial Hospital.

The Better Health Programme is part of a national review into how NHS services in each region will meet significant cuts in funding and become sustainable over the next five years.

The review in this region includes the future of 24-hour Accident and Emergency Services and consultant-led maternity and paediatric services at Darlington Memorial and North Tees hospitals.

In 2014, 24-hour consultant-led maternity and paediatric services were lost from Northallerton’s Friarage Hospital, despite a passionate campaign against the move in North Yorkshire. Protesters claimed it would put patients’ health at risk by forcing them to travel even greater distances to reach these services.

At the time, NHS bosses reassured North Yorkshire residents that there would be sufficient capacity at Darlington to cope with the extra expectant mothers travelling to the site.

News that these services at Darlington may now also be threatened has now prompted North Yorkshire County Council to call on the NHS to honour its original assurances.

At its full council meeting in Northallerton this week, councillors passed a motion put forward by Cllr Carl Les and seconded by Cllr John Blackie, which stated the council: “Calls upon the Better Health Programme review to take into account the needs of its residents and communities, many of them rural in nature, that rely upon these critical care services remaining at the Darlington Memorial Hospital".

It added that it expected the review to "honour the commitment to maintain them at the Darlington Memorial Hospital in line with the assurances given to residents in the county during the review of services provided at the Friarage Hospital in 2014.”

Speaking after the meeting, Cllr Blackie said it was a 60 mile journey just to Darlington for many people in the Yorkshire Dales, which for someone about to go into labour, or with a sick child, was already a daunting distance.

  • No comment was available from the Better Health Programme.