I READ the headline “Rumours about A&E closure are quashed” (DST, Sep 16) with relief and then the report which followed filled me with dismay.

You seem to have swallowed the rumour without checking properly about what is planned at the Friarage Hospital in Northallerton.

I have friends who work there and very recently a family member had cause to be very thankful for the excellent treatment received at the A&E following a serious fall. So I was initially very alarmed at reports about the closure or downgrading of A&E.

I took the trouble to ring the Hambleton, Richmondshire and Whitby Clinical Commissioning Group, which pays for the services at the Friarage, to find out what was going on.

In short, what is planned is an enhancement of the present service. That’s right – a better service to patients, not a downgrading.

Under the plan there will be exactly the same number of consultants on duty. They will work the same hours.

Exactly the same range of injuries and conditions will be treated. They only thing that will change will be the unit’s enhanced ability to treat patients within the four-hour target at the busiest times at weekends.

And don’t get hung up on the name change. Urgent and Emergency Care Centre is simply a reflection of the range of injuries treated at the department now. The most seriously-hurt accident victims have been treated at the regional trauma centre at the James Cook hospital for years.

I appreciate the need to be vigilant about the Friarage following the downgrading of maternity but if every change at the hospital is going to be greeted by this sort of negativity, it is very depressing for the staff at the hospital who are rightly proud of the service they provide.

Cllr John Blackie, who worthily campaigned for the maternity unit, does himself no favours in this instance by adopting his trademark shoot-from-the-hip-ask-questions-later style.

He didn’t bother to check the facts before talking to your reporter and he is simply incorrect in suggesting the unit is being downgraded.

He should show some humility and admit he got this wrong.

Irresponsible scaremonging is in nobody’s interests – not even for a publicity-hungry politician like Cllr Blackie.

Jane Saunders, Romanby, Northallerton