Doctors in Airedale are enlisting the help of patients to make the path to recovery a better one.

Four GP practices within Airedale Primary Care Trust will be shadowing patients through a year of their treatment.

The aim will be to improve care pathways -- the line of treatment for patients which starts at their GP and is followed by treatment in hospital and then rehabilitation. Health experts say the less time that patients -- particularly the elderly -- spend in hospital, the more chance they have of making a good recovery.

This is attributed to the fact that patients become vulnerable to infection the longer they stay on the wards.

Patients with chronic obstructive airways disease, angina and fractured neck of femur are being asked to volunteer for the study.

Chairman of the professional executive committee Dr Maggie Helliwell said: "Patients are going to be selected from those three areas and on the number of admissions they have had to hospital.

"Any patients who have had at least two hospital admissions will be given the chance to take part in the research.

"What we are trying to do is lessen the number of admissions to hospital and I think it will be really useful."

The practices are conducting the trial alongside colleagues at Airedale Hospital and the University of Durham.

The trust has drafted care guidelines for patients with long term neurological conditions, such as epilepsy, multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's disease.

Dr Helliwell told trust board members that people with these conditions needed accurate advice and quick referral to a localised special service for assessment.

Patients should also have access throughout their life to appropriate neurology treatment, rehabilitation and support in their homes to allow them to live as independently as possible.