Health bosses were grilled at a well-attended public meeting yesterday on proposals to scrap the district's four primary care trusts and replace them with just one organisation.

The shake-up of health services will also see West Yorkshire Strategic Health Authority merge with others in the region to become Yorkshire and Humber Strategic Health Authority, and West Yorkshire Metropolitan Ambulance Service merge with others to become one organisation for the whole of Yorkshire and the Humber.

Under the plans, West Yorkshire's 15 primary care trusts will be reduced to five, with one each for Kirklees, Calderdale, Leeds and Wakefield, as well as Bradford.

The mergers will release £13.2 million in savings in West Yorkshire, which health leaders say would be channelled back into cancer and palliative care services.

The public meeting at Bradford Central Library heard from chief executive of West Yorkshire Strategic Health Authority, Mike Farrar, Dr Barbara Hakin, programme director for Bradford, and Jeremy Pease, interim director of operations at WYMAS.

Mr Farrar told the meeting the changes were about finding the best way to spend tax payers' money on health services and about creating organisations the public could have confidence in. He said a key element of the changes was about creating health care organisations which shared boundaries with local authorities to make it easier to work in partnership.

Dr Hakin said while the primary care trust had been hugely successful in the Bradford district it would be easier in some areas to operate as one organisation.

Mr Pease said the benefits of one ambulance organisation for Yorkshire and the Humber would be a greater capacity to deliver high performing services and better trained and equipped staff.

Mr Farrar made a commitment that money saved in management costs would be ploughed back into the local health economy to improve cancer and palliative care and not be used to plug holes in the health care economy.

Concerns raised by the public included a fear health inequalities in the district would widen, how greater public involvement could be achieved and how the voluntary sector could make its voice heard.

The public has until March 22 to have their say on the proposals. This can be done by downloading a document from www.wysha.nhs.uk and completing a feedback form or by phoning 0845 1203152. There is also a second public meeting at Bingley Arts Centre on February 2 at 7pm.