SOUTH Cumbria's MPs have agreed to meet with members of a health watchdog body to discuss its future.

Barrow and Furness MP John Hutton, who is also a minister of state for health, and Westmorland and Lonsdale MP Tim Collins, are to hold separate meetings next month with members of South Cumbria Community Health Council.

CHCs were set up in 1974 to represent the interests of the public in the NHS.

Among their roles, they monitor local services and act as the patient's friend in providing information and advice.

They also help people who need independent advice and support when they want to raise concerns or complaints about the health service they have received.

Under the new NHS Plan, CHCs are to be abolished, and their functions spread among at least five different types of agencies.

South Cumbria CHC members are concerned about the changes.

Members are not campaigning to keep the CHC in its present form, because they recognise their limitations with the current levels of resources and powers.

However, they want to speak to both MPs to put over their fears about how the CHC's functions will be provided in the future.

Chief officer Mary Sloan said: "We recognise things needed to change, and things needed to be improved, but many of the good parts (of the CHC) need to be maintained."

CHCs had hoped the NHS Plan would improve and modernise their organisations.