Medical services likely to be on offer at the new Wharfedale Hospital are to be revealed next month.

And now, the fight is on to make the hospital far more than a glorified health centre.

As part of the next stage of public consultation into the new hospital - proposed next to Garnetts Mill, Otley - health chiefs are to start a three-month public consultation.

The Leeds Health Authority consultation, due to start on February 7, will ask people to comment on a proposal document put forward by the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust and covering all Leeds hospitals.

It is expected to look at the best way to provide health services across Leeds including proposed medical and health services at the new Wharfedale Hospital.

A spokesman for Leeds Health Authority was unable to comment on the range of services proposed for the hospital before next month but said there would be an extensive public consultation.

Graham Hoult, lay member of the Leeds North West Primary Care Group (PCG), said there was still a large number of people who believed the new hospital would have the same range of services as the old one in its heyday.

"There is still a large group of people in a position of influence who believe Wharfedale Hospital has a chance of being what it once was."

He said it was far more likely that the new hospital would concentrate on largely investigative and day care surgery and the care of the elderly.

However he continued that the PCG believed there was scope to fight for more extensive services at the hospital.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.