A consultant psychiatrist has spoken of her fears that the care of mental health patients in South Lakeland could suffer if a hospital ward was to shut.

Dr Pat Thomas said it was even possible that the proposed closure of Ward 4 at Kendal's Westmorland General Hospital could lead to more patients being sectioned under the Mental Health Act.

Dr Thomas said that patients who might be a danger to themselves or others sometimes agreed to be admitted to hospital if it was to their local unit.

However, the fact that Lancaster would be the alternative to Ward 4, and that it still carried the stigma of the old Lancaster Moor Hospital, could deter some patients.

Dr Thomas, who said she was also speaking for her colleague, fellow consultant psychiatrist Dr Avice Simpson, urged anyone opposed to the closure to attend one of two meetings about the issue next week, to write to health bosses, and to sign a petition.

"(We need) to make a big noise to make it clear how much the community wants and needs Ward 4.

"I think there's been more interest than you might expect for a psychiatric ward.

"We have got a lot of people that have been our patients who are prepared to be very vocal. I think they (the trust) have under-estimated the strength of the local feeling about Ward 4."

The closure of the ward is being proposed by Morecambe Bay Primary Care Trust to help it balance its books as it struggles to find millions of pounds of savings. The proposal is for South Lakeland patients who need to be admitted to be cared for at Ridge Lea Hospital in Lancaster, instead of Kendal, with possible savings of £200,000.

However, in her response to the PCT's consultation, Dr Thomas said that it was misleading of the trust to claim that the nature of in-patient care would not suffer if the ward were to shut.

The ward took 140 admissions from south Cumbria from September 2004 to September 2005, and these patients, and their visitors, would all have to travel to Lancaster.

Dr Thomas said although nursing staff could be moved to Lancaster, if they wanted to go, the consultants and staff grade doctors would need to continue to be based at Kendal where they have a large community case load. This would mean they would have less time to spend with patients on the ward.

Dr Thomas also said that additional charges for transfers by ambulance over the county boundary would mean it would cost approximately £86 for a patient and an escort to be taken from Kendal to Ridge Lea.

As patients improved and regained their confidence, they needed to be able to leave the hospital for periods of time, which would be much more difficult if someone was in an unfamiliar town.

Dr Thomas also said that the training of junior doctors would be affected because, if they needed to be in Lancaster to look after South Lakeland patients, they would have less easy access to support from senior colleagues on their own team.

The PCT's chief executive Leigh Griffin said this week that Lancaster patients were currently admitted to Ward 4 because of bed pressures, and he did not believe there was any evidence that patient care would be affected if the situation were reversed.

However, he said that all the comments would be looked into as part of the consultation process, and he would like to meet people with concerns. There were no "done deals" about the proposal, he stressed.

Meanwhile, Westmorland and Lonsdale MP Tim Farron has collected more than 1,000 petition signatures calling on the Government to prevent health cuts in the bay, and is still trying to find out if there is spare cash elsewhere within the NHS that could be used to offset the cuts.

The PCT's next consultation meeting on Ward 4 takes place at Stricklandgate House, Kendal, next Wednesday, December 7, at 7pm. A public meeting organised by the NHS SOS Save Our Services group will be held on Tuesday, December 6, at 7pm, in the Shakespeare Centre, Highgate, Kendal. The group has been collecting petition signatures against the closure.

See The Westmorland Gazette Letters section for more....