Health chiefs, GPs and councillors are being asked to support plans which will change the way in-patient mental health services for adults are provided in Bradford and Airedale.

The proposals – which include reducing the number of older people’s mental health beds and to relocate the adult mental health psychiatric intensive care unit (PICU) from the Airedale Centre for Mental Health to Lynfield Mount Hospital in Bradford – follow a public consultation earlier this year.

A report has now been produced which will go before each of the three Bradford and Airedale Clinical Commissioning Boards, Bradford Council’s health overview and scrutiny committee and NHS Airedale, Bradford and Leeds cluster board, for approval.

They are being asked to support an option which will see the number of older people’s mental health beds reduced from 71 to 43 and the number of older people’s units reduced from four to two. Wards for functional illnesses, such as depression, anxiety disorders, and schizophrenia, would be at the Airedale Centre for Mental Health, while beds for organic illnesses, such as dementias, would be located at Lynfield Mount Hospital.

Bradford District Care Trust currently spends £9.59million a year on Older People’s Mental Health Services and needs to make savings of 20 per cent over the next five years. Reducing the number of beds, which are under-occupied, would result in savings of £1.15million, which is only 12 per cent, so other savings have to be made.

Three options were put out to public consultation and NHS Airedale, Bradford and Leeds produced and circulated 12,000 copies of the engagement leaflet, held public meetings, focus groups, one-to-one meetings, and events in supermarkets across Bradford, Skipton and Ilkley . It received 214 written responses to the consultation, with 115 (53.7 per cent) supporting the option put forward.

The report says: “Many people commented that they supported this option because, whilst not ideal, it was the most acceptable and the fairest.” Few comments were received about the proposed transfer of PICU from Airedale to Lynfield Mount in Bradford.