MP TIM Collins has raised his fears about the future of Kendal's emergency and minor accident unit at a special meeting in the House of Commons.

The MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale spoke at a lobby meeting of health professionals and MPs from areas across the country where hospital services are under threat.

Mr Collins is concerned about the future of Westmorland General Hospital's emergency and minor accident unit.

The future of the unit is currently being reviewed, and the MP is keen to guard against the service closing for any period during the night, which has been suggested as one possible solution.

Mr Collins told the lobby meeting there were changes which should be taken into account if any scaling back of local services was considered.

He said there was more traffic on the roads, particularly in places like the Lake District, during the tourist season, and therefore journey times were going up.

The population of the country was increasing, and the elderly population was growing particularly quickly, he said.

The MP also said we were " constantly told" we had the fourth largest economy in the world and that vast additional resources were going into the NHS.

He said: "I concluded my speech by arguing that if the need is going up and the resources are going up, why are we talking about reducing hospital services like Kendal emergency and minor accident unit, rather than expanding them?

"I also briefed the participants on the issues surrounding the Westmorland General Hospital's unit, and it was quite noticeable that from the number of areas represented there - from Cornwall to Solihull and from Portsmouth to the Wyre Forest - many had heard about the Westmorland General and regard it as a model to be followed so they were a bit taken aback to learn that there was a threat to services there too."

However, Mr Collins said that there was an indication that decision makers were more sensitive to the public's desire for hospital services, like those at WGH, to be preserved.

l The next meeting of the review committee looking at the unit's future takes place on Wednesday, April 10, at 4pm, at Kendal Town Hall.

The meeting, which is open to the public, will look at a proposal for joint working overnight and at weekends between the unit's staff, the GPs' out-of-hours co-operative, and NHS Direct.