It has been praised for taking the views of patients into account, but now a health trust's listening skills are being put to the test.
Hundreds of campaigners plan to march in Bridlington tomorrow in an attempt to protect the town's hospital from cuts they believe will be made by Scarborough and North East Yorkshire Health Care Trust.
An independent assessment published yesterday said the organisation met the standard for listening to the public when taking decisions but rated it as "weak" for quality of services and use of resources.
Mick Pilling, of the Save Bridlington Hospital Action Group, which has been running for five years, said: "We feel the management has done a really poor job. It's just gone from bad to worse."
The hospital has recently been the subject of a review by the trust.
Entitled The Future Of Bridlington Hospital, it went to public consultation earlier this year.
It included plans to remove maternity care, the cardiac monitoring unit and some acute services.
The plans were put on hold following the publication of a financial strategy by the trust, under which it proposed to axe 600 posts across the area in order to pay back its debt of £20.7m.
However, the trust negotiated a deal with the Yorkshire and Humber Strategic Health Authority to "park" the historic debt in September and the planned job cuts have been scaled back to about 50.
But the future of Bridlington Hospital is now back on the agenda and the trust's board of directors is due to discuss plans at its November board meeting.
Mr Pilling said: "Bridlington is a regeneration area.
"We feel the hospital should be protected for the future because, as a regeneration area, you don't know how high the population will go.
"They are wanting people to come to Bridlington but, of course, people come with their health problems."
The report on the trust was carried out by watchdogs the Healthcare Commission, which monitors the performance of 394 health bodies in England.
It placed the trust among the bottom 20 in the country.
But Iain McInnes, trust chief executive, said a great deal ofpositive work was going on.
"Overall, patients rated their experiences with us as satisfactory and while we would like to improve this perception, it shows that, generally, we are meeting people's expectations," he said.
"We are putting a new management structure in place over the next few weeks and by December will have a virtually new board of directors.
"We will be looking at a variety of ways in which we can continue the work that is already under way to improve the efficiency and quality of our services and will always keep patient safety as our top priority."
The march leaves Bridlington Business Centre, at the rear of Morrisons supermarket, Bessingby Way, at 10am on Saturday before heading for the hospital.
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