A hospital boss has pledged that gynaecological treatment will not be axed in his radical plans to streamline services.

Adam Cairns, Airedale NHS Trust's chief executive, said there was no plan to absorb it in a new system of admissions and aftercare.

"I'm making it clear that we will be retaining gynaecological services. And there will be no job losses," he said.

Mr Cairns' comments follow claims by patients that they believed the gynaecology ward was to close. Mr Cairns, who has been in charge for three months, has introduced a plan to help the trust recover from its £6 million deficit.

Part of the initiative was to cut back on the number of patients staying overnight in the hospital before surgery when it was not clinically necessary, he explained.

He had held talks with surgeons and a system was being devised in which a ward would be set up into which all surgery cases would be prepared in one ward on the day of surgery.

He said: "There are more than 1,000 patients a year who do not need to stay overnight. They could come into the hospital on the day or surgery. This means they would not be taking up beds on other wards and therefore there would be a reduction in the number of beds needed throughout the hospital."

He said decisions were still being made on where the admissions ward would be located.

It was crucial patients were put with the right staff when recovering, especially gynaeocology patients, he added. Management and medical staff were also looking at new ways of streamlining the through- put of patients who were admitted as acute patients or from accident and emergency

Unison representative for hospital staff, Linda Dalton, said she was in talks with Mr Cairns. She said: "Whatever happens, the chief executive needs to look very carefully and sensitively at where these patients go and I think he will."

Councillor Andrew Mallinson (Keighley, Con) said: "The needs of patients at Airedale seems to be being ignored, particularly when it seems the reason is, on the face of it, to save money.

"The hospital has to be a viably run organisation but there must be government assisted funding to get the hospital over this rough patch or there will be a public outcry where does it end?"