THE head of an influential organisation representing elderly people in York has welcomed a recent report calling for the closure of 200 hospital beds in our region.

Bob Towner, vice chairman of York Older People’s Assembly, claims GPs are too quick to send the elderly to hospital, despite many pensioners preferring to be treated in their homes where it would be cheaper to care for them.

Mr Towner was speaking in the wake of an independent report which made 44 recommendations for tough money-saving initiatives in the region’s NHS, including the loss of 200 hospital beds or, in extreme circumstances, the closure of a general hospital.

He said if fewer people were in hospital it would be easier for the NHS in North Yorkshire and York to achieve the £230 million in efficiency savings it must make before 2015. He also said it may be time to consider closing a general hospital, such as Scarborough, which he singled out as “underperforming”.

“The majority of older people don’t want to be in hospital if they can avoid it,” he said. “Pensioners account for 70 per cent of bed occupancy in York Hospital and it can be argued that many of these people don’t need to be in there.

“There are increased referrals, year on year, directly from GPs to hospitals.”

He said: “Then there are those who present at A&E. York Hospital has just completed a pilot scheme where GPs joined the staff at A&E and saw patients as they came in. They were able to say that 60 per cent could be treated in other ways and not become inpatients.”

Mr Towner said removing 200 beds would be difficult if you are still “stuck with overheads of the buildings”. He said: “I think the courageous way would be to take a hospital out of the North Yorkshire area. The natural candidate would be Scarborough because it’s underperforming.”

York Older People’s Assembly represents the needs of the elderly on the boards of City of York Council, the Hospital Trust and the Primary Care Trust and sits on policy-making committees.