HEALTH professionals, hospital workers and patients have issued a rallying call for the people of South Lakeland to join the campaign against "unethical", "unthinkable" and "devastating" proposals to cut NHS services.

Anger is growing among the local community amid fears that Westmorland General Hospital could be stripped of more services, leaving its long-term future in doubt.

Emotions ran high at two public meetings this week, with people, almost in tears, pleading for a hospital ward to be saved.

Proposals to save £300,000 by closing Ward 2, for older people with mental health problems, and clawing back £200,000 by shutting Ward 4, for adults with mental illness, in Kendal, were met with fierce opposition. Ward 2 would be replaced with community services, and Ward 4 would be moved to Lancaster.

Westmorland and Lonsdale MP Tim Farron, GPs, service users, and staff were among around 100 opponents who joined the heated debate when representatives of Morecambe Bay Primary Care Trust which runs the two wards faced a public consultation meeting over Ward 4 on Wednesday.

Peter Clarke, director of mental health for the PCT, said the need to find £2.8 million of savings from mental health services meant "service closures and major service changes rather than being a bit more efficient".

By moving beds from Ward 4 to Ridge Lea, in Lancaster, he said: "We can still sustain a service this way, in the sense that there will continue to be in-patient provision for the people of South Lakeland, but quite obviously it will be less convenient."

Joining the dozens who praised the work of the ward staff, and almost in tears, an opponent pleaded with Mr Clarke to save Ward 4, saying that patients feared being sent to Lancaster because of associations with the former Lancaster Moor hospital.

"This £200,000 saving should not be done at the very great risk of my friend's mental health. To my friend, Ward 4 is an absolutely essential back-up."

One protester said she was "staggered" the closure should be proposed to save "just" £200,000.

Ward 4 staff member Andrew Billson-Page also dismissed Mr Clarke's claims that there was a greater need for in-patient services at Lancaster, saying more than three-quarters of Ward 4's admissions were from South Lakeland.

South Lakeland district and Kendal town councillor Charles Batteson, a former patient on Ward 4, said the plans amounted to discrimination against mental health patients.

"This is going to severely disadvantage south Cumbria," he said. "I suspect that some of you (the PCT) have found it less than comfortable to have to justify an incomprehensible, dishonest and long-term financial plan that doesn't make sense."

At a separate meeting, on Tuesday night, more than 30 people turned up to the first public meeting of NHS SOS Save Our Services, which sent out the message "please help us".

Five speakers took to the stage pointing out that closing the wards, and moving some services to Lancaster, would have a detrimental effect on patients and would make visiting much more difficult for family and friends.

Nikki Clement, who has worked on Ward 4, said a very valuable service would be lost, while community psychiatric nurse Rob Fearn said the proposed savings would be eaten into by extra travelling expenses for staff, which could amount to as much as £20,000.

Members of the public voiced their dismay at the plans, and some were concerned the hospital would "go to nothing", saying the move meant more than just money and inconvenience to the service users.

However, Hugh Caffrey, who described himself as an NHS activist, and who successfully campaigned to keep a similar unit open in Manchester, offered hope for those fighting the proposed cuts.

"We took it up with leaflets and petitions, went out there on to the streets, outside the hospital talking to patients and staff, getting out the idea it was possible to campaign against the closures it's possible to campaign and it's possible to win," he said.

Anyone who wants to add their name to the campaign can sign a petition at all GP surgeries. The group is to host a monthly NHS SOS campaign meeting and there will be a day of action at the Birdcage in Kendal's Finkle Street tomorrow (Saturday) from 10.30am.

This week, MP Tim Farron, who is also gathering petition signatures against bay-wide health cuts, said he hoped to involve other MPs from Morecambe Bay, and PCT managers, in a delegation to protest to Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt "The key point is if Westmorland General Hospital is seriously stripped of services its long-term future could be put in doubt," he said.

by Andrew Daniels and Ellie Hargreaves