Bridgehead House is facing closure

Bridgehead House in Goole, East Yorkshire, has admitted only 15 patients since the facility was launched in January 2002.

Disability charity Leonard Cheshire, which built and paid for the centre, says that health trusts are failing to refer patients.

It means the centre, which is currently treating just two people, could close on 22 August with the loss of 30 experienced staff.

Rehabilitation services

Director General Bryan Dutton said: "We are saddened and extremely frustrated by this unnecessary situation.

"We know how much this specialist service is needed and we cannot understand why some local health services are failing to refer people to it.

"The greatest losers here are people with brain injuries and their families."

The centre offers rehabilitation to people suffering from brain injury caused by traffic accidents, assaults, high-risk sports and drug and alcohol-related incidents.

The local health trusts involved include... The Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust The North Lincolnshire and Goole Hospitals NHS Trust The North and East Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire Strategic Health Authority

But in a statement, the North and East Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire Strategic Health Authority said it had expressed previous doubts of the unit's viability.

It added that clinical policies and criteria for referrals were not fully agreed before it opened.

But the health authority had been working with the charity to "support them in the difficulties they have encountered in achieving referrals".

Claire Wood, of the East Yorkshire Primary Care Trust, said the trusts involved do not believe the unit's admission criteria is wide enough.

She said: "I am very disappointed with the announcement to close Bridgehead House.

"The unit is a superb rehabilitation facility and more patients would benefit if the selection criteria for admission and programmes of care offered were more flexible."

She added that the NHS would be willing to continue to work with Leonard Cheshire to see if there was a way forward.