NORTH Yorkshire health chiefs have welcomed a Government cash boost which will mean an extra 11 "critical care" beds in the county.

A £1.708 million package for North Yorkshire Health Authority aimed at avoiding a winter crisis in the NHS will pay for two high-dependency beds at York District Hospital.

It will also provide five critical care beds at Scarborough District Hospital, and four high dependency beds at the Friarage Hospital in Northallerton.

There is also cash for "critical care outreach teams" which can provide a higher level of care to patients on normal acute hospital wards for York and Scarborough.

The cash is part of a £214 million package to ease congestion on NHS wards.

It was welcomed by Liz Henley, assistant director service development for North Yorkshire Health Authority, who said their share was higher than their original bid.

"It's good news, we are very pleased," she added.

She explained that critical care was a new concept encompassing different levels of care, from intensive care downwards.

Last winter Scarborough District Hospital was the focus of high profile cases where operations had to be cancelled because none of its four intensive care beds was available for recovering patients.

Communications manager Gilly Collinson said: "It will be a tremendous boost to the hospital to more than double the number of intensive care beds available to us.

"We sincerely hope we will have less problems with cancellations next winter, and this money will be a tremendous benefit to local patients." She added the hospital was receiving a total of about £800,000, and the new beds would be used as intensive care or high dependency beds.

Sue Acott, a general manager at York District Hospital, said it was receiving £350,000 revenue and £170,000 capital cash for two high dependency beds.

She added: "We have felt for a time that we have an under-provision of critical care beds, and that's why we are so pleased to get the money for the extra beds." The outreach team at York would also help to train other staff in critical care skills.

The new services at both York and Scarborough are due to be running from December.