CITY councillors have written to York health bosses, asking questions about a dermatology scheme some fear amounts to “cash for cuts”.

Cllr Paul Doughty, the chairman of City of York’s health scrutiny committee, said they have asked questions, after another councillor came to them with fears about the project.

City councillor Denise Craghill said she is worried that the scheme appears to offer surgeries extra funding if they reduce the number of people referred to hospital departments.

She said it could amount to “cash for cuts” - and needs to be urgently reviewed either by the health body itself or city councillors - but health bosses have said it actually helps people get care closer to home, and cuts waiting times.

Cllr Craghill said: “I have been told that all the savings made by the hospital go back into improving the quality of dermatological services in surgeries and that the scheme is helping to cut waiting times for people who are referred to the hospital. The obvious concern is that the pressure to reduce referrals could have a very negative impact on individual patients who may not be referred when they should be.”

If new technology exists which could improve dermatology care, that should be available to everybody and should not depend on GPs cutting hospital referrals, she added.

However, the health body responsible says it is a clinically-led scheme which promotes efficient care, and does not see GPs simply paid not to refer patients to hospital.

A spokesman for Vale of York CCG said: “The aim for local dermatology referral work is to allow groups of GP practices to work together to reduce variation and inequity in treatment maintaining this, where appropriate, within the community and ideally as close to the patients home as possible.”

Anyone who needs a referral to hospital specialists will still get one, they added.

Any money saved goes into dermatology services in the community so people can be treated closer to home, and the scheme also helps hospital departments concentrate on patients who need more complex care, the spokesman said.

The CCG and York Against Cancer are national pioneers when it comes to dermatology at primary care level through things like giving surgeries specialist dermatoscopes, they added.