HEALTH bosses have been urged to take immediate action at a general hospital to alleviate a recruitment crisis threatening its emergency care.

Richmond MP Rishi Sunak has told South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust bosses the pressing situation at the Friarage Hospital in Northallerton had developed because “for too long there has been a one-way street with resources heading to Middlesbrough”.

As concerns mount over the hospital's future, Mr Sunak has raised the pressures being faced at the Friarage Hospital in Northallerton in parliament and urged health minister Philip Dunne to press the trust to do everything it can to find more critical care clinicians and anaesthetists.

The moves come after it emerged a lack of anaesthetic cover at the hospital - and problems recruiting critical care doctors - could soon threaten the hospital’s capacity to treat seriously ill patients or provide emergency care.

Trust bosses say they are working to come up with a long-term strategy for services at the Friarage, but Mr Sunak has responded by asking them to redouble efforts to recruit more doctors.

In recent years, the trust's inability to recruit doctors to the Friarage led to the downgrading of its maternity and paediatric units, while its failure to recruit nurses at the Lambert Memorial Hospital, in Thirsk, led to the infirmary closing its doors.

Staff at the Friarage were told last week the NHS trust was struggling to recruit the critical care doctors and anaesthetists on which the A&E service and other acute medical services depended.

At a meeting with more than 40 doctors, nurses and medical staff, Mr Sunak was told about the importance of accident and emergency and critical care to the hospital’s ability to serve the residents of Hambleton and Richmondshire.

One doctor said: “If you lose the A&E and the ability to look after patients who fall seriously ill suddenly, you lose the ability to do a lot of other procedures.”

Mr Sunak pushed Siobhan McArdle, chief executive of the trust, to review the trust’s recruitment campaign which has been running for a year without success.

In response to Mr Sunak’s enquiries regarding a trust-wide approach to staffing, she and Adrian Clements, the Friarage’s medical director, also agreed to look at rosters of doctors based at the James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough.

Mr Sunak said: “I am sure many people will find it hard to understand why the trust struggles to attract doctors to the Friarage – a modern hospital in an attractive part of the UK. I have asked the trust to look at every possibility in finding the doctors to keep the unit operating as it does at present.”

The MP said he would also investigate the use of incentives to attract doctors as he understood a “golden hello” scheme had operated in other parts of the country facing similar problems. He said Friarage staff had told him that the recruitment problem was made worse by the lack of a clearly communicated future for the hospital.

Mr Clements said a long-term strategy was being created for the hospital.