ACCIDENT and emergency at IRH will no longer treat patients who have suffered life-threatening or serious injuries in a major hospital shake-up.

Board members of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde have backed a restructuring of hospitals to create a new tiered system.

As a result around 800 patients a year will be moved on to the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley or, in the most serious cases, to the Queen Elizabeth in Glasgow.

Inverclyde Royal will be reclassified as a 'local emergency hospital' dealing with medical and surgery patients.

The health board says it will become a 'centre of excellence' in elective surgery with an additional 360 operations, like knee replacements, carried out.

Inverclyde's health board representative Councillor Jim Clocherty says this will secure the future of the hospital and he insists it has not been downgraded.

He said: "I don't believe Inverclyde Royal is being downgraded in this restructuring.

"It is a tier system, the structures are changing.

"There will be questions asked, and I have raised them as well, about the role of the Scottish Ambulance Service and triage.

"I have always asked if they take something away, what will be put in its place - I now have my answer.

"When you look at the statistics it does not impact on the majority of the work carried out in A&E.

"And the majority of patients will then be sent back to Inverclyde for rehabilitation.

"Going forward I think this is positive for Inverclyde."

Trauma patients are widely regarded as those who have suffered a serious or life threatening injury as a result of an event such as a car accident, serious knife wounds or falls.

Dr Jennifer Armstrong, NHS GGC’s medical director, said: “We estimate that for IRH, the change will affect a small number of patients each week for acute trauma care, with most returning to the IRH for ongoing care and rehabilitation.

“This new model will also mean that theatre time will be freed up at IRH, allowing it to become a centre of excellence with continued access to specialist care and an increase in planned operations such as knee replacements.

"We hope that nearly 360 more of these operations can be carried out there each year.”

In the report health board bosses say evidence shows the chances of survival increase in a major trauma unit.

Four major trauma units are to be created in Scotland, with one of them at the new Queen Elizabeth.

The Royal Alexandra will be the main trauma hospital in the Clyde area with patients from Inverclyde taken there.

Trauma cases will still present at Inverclyde Royal and will be assessed and moved on.

Statistics show that trauma activity accounts for about eight per cent of A&E admissions locally and 60 per cent of patients will end up back in Inverclyde for rehab.

Around 800 patients a year will go to the RAH from now on instead of Inverclyde Royal.

A combined figure of 136 patients currently treated either at the RAH or Inverclyde Royal will go to the Queen Elizabeth.