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NHS England Yorkshire and Humber region is asking patients and the public for their views on proposals for the future of specialised vascular services in West Yorkshire.

Vascular services reconstruct, unblock or bypass arteries and are often one-off specialist procedures to reduce the risk of sudden death or amputation and prevent stroke. 

Currently the specialised vascular services in West Yorkshire are delivered from three centres – Leeds General Infirmary, Bradford Royal Infirmary and Huddersfield Royal Infirmary. Based on a need to reduce the number of specialised vascular centres from three to two identified by Yorkshire and The Humber Clinical Senate, the proposed recommendation being consulted on is that those centres should be at Leeds General Infirmary due to its status as a major trauma centre, and Bradford Royal Infirmary due to its co-location with renal care. The proposals could result in all specialised vascular surgery that requires an overnight hospital stay being transferred from Huddersfield Royal Infirmary to Bradford Royal Infirmary, which would potentially affect up to 800 patients a year. 

The majority of patients would continue to access vascular day-case surgery, diagnostics, outpatient appointments and rehabilitation services in local hospitals throughout West Yorkshire. 

There are three main reasons for the recommended change to services set out as part of the consultation:

• Specialised vascular centres must be able to deliver a safe and sustainable service to comply with NHS England’s national service specification.
• There are significant staffing pressures at both the Bradford and Huddersfield centres, and while teams are working very hard to maintain good patient outcomes and deliver the appropriate volume of activity for specialised vascular procedures, the service cannot continue in its current form.
• Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust and Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust currently run a shared out of hours on-call rota for emergency vascular services between the two sites, which is not supported as an acceptable or long-term solution by NHS England or Yorkshire and The Humber Clinical Senate.

For a copy of the public consultation and link to on-line feedback go to: https://www.england.nhs.uk/north-east-yorkshire/wyv/

Six events in the local community will also be taking place for members of the public and patients to attend. These will provide an opportunity for clinical leaders to explain the proposals. Details of these events are set out below should you be interested.