THE long-awaited replacement for Ilkley's Coronation Hospital could be abandoned or scaled down amid possible national changes to the health service.

After years of campaigning, a lengthy public consultation process and reassurances from the health trust which owns the Springs Lane hospital site, campaigners have learned that the survival of Ilkley's hospital services could depend on the opinions of Wharfedale GPs, rather than the pledges of Airedale Primary Care Trust (PCT).

Now some fear a new body made up of local GPs could decide to scale down or abandon plans for a Health Care Centre on Springs Lane - although the views of local GPs may work in favour of keeping services together on a new-build site Ilkley.

Ilkley parish councillor Mike Gibbons, who heads the Coronation Hospital campaign group, says significant funding and decision-making responsibilities of the PCT are about to be handed over to groupings of local GPs in a practice-based system of commissioning healthcare.

Councillor Gibbons told Monday's parish council meeting that he learned about the possible impact of NHS changes in a meeting with a PCT official.

He said: "It's my understanding that this is only in its infancy, but the GPs of the Wharfe Valley are in fact getting together and forming a group. It's been suggested to me that it may be up to this particular group to decide on the future of the Coronation rebuild."

Coun Gibbons believes giving the decision to local GPs could swing in favour of building the new centre, but questions over what services to retain, exactly where to build, what to build and even whether to build the health care centre, have yet to be answered.

He was reassured by the PCT officer that the new group was unlikely to go back to the drawing board and call for a new consultation. Coun Gibbons likened the new funding structure described to him to the now-defunct GP fundholding system.

Ilkley campaigners - backed up with their 11,000-signature petition against losing hospital services - remain defiant.

"The fight continues, we're not going to let it go," said Coun Gibbons.

Other town leaders also spoke out this week.

"We need these services, particularly for the elderly and for young families with young children. We need them to do the rebuild and to honour their promises made both in writing and verbally," said Councillor Kathy Best.

"I think the people of Ilkley will rise to the occasion and fight them again, and start to make them push for this to happen."

There was also some concern that Wharfedale doctors outside of Ilkley itself might not favour building a new hospital in Ilkley.

Airedale PCT, which is merging with Bradford North PCT, has pledged its commitment to providing the best possible health facilities and premises for all patients. But the trust did not detail what NHS changes were coming.

The chief executive of Airedale and North Bradford Primary Care Trusts, Ian Rutter, said: "Local services will continue as a priority for Airedale Primary Care Trust and we will continue to be committed to providing the best possible health facilities and premises for all patients.

"I would like to reassure members of the public that views expressed during our consultations will still inform any decisions on improving health premises that will be made in the future. We are still keen to encourage patients to play a major part in any decisions about their health services."

The PCT's drive to create the health care centre has been held up for months by a legal wrangle with the neighbouring Ilkley Grammar School over a covenant on the land. Coun Gibbons said one of the plans he had recently seen involved side-stepping the legal issues by building the centre to the west of the Springs Medical Centre, rather than the east side as previously suggested.

Since the end of the PCT's consultation period, the Coronation has lost its Minor Injuries Unit, and several specialist clinics. The fear has always been that the longer the hold-up in building the Health Care Centre, the greater the risk of losing hospital services, or even the impetus to build the centre itself.

Coun Gibbons plans to hold an emergency meeting of the Ilkley campaign group.