THE campaign to save the beds at the Chase Community Hospital has hotted up. The move came in a week in which health bosses admitted they were not happy with the proposals they have had to put forward.

Local churches are delivering thousands of leaflets to homes throughout Bordon and surrounding villages to gain support for their cause.

They are hoping residents will write in their hundreds to the health authority in a bid to stop the plans to axe 16 GP and consultant beds at the hospital and replace them with a new community care scheme.

It has already been agreed that the remaining eight EMI (Elderly Mentally Infirm) beds at the MacIlwain ward will be relocated to Basingstoke.

Campaigners made their voices heard again on Tuesday at East Hampshire District CouncilÕs north east area community committee.

They were able to quiz Gill Duncan, chief executive of the North Hampshire Primary Care Trust (NHPCT). At the packed meeting in Liphook, campaigners pointed out the devastating effect that closure of the ward will have on local people.

Whitehill town councillor Geraldine Wilson said: ÒThese changes are life-threatening to our local people.

ÒWe have very little public transport - Basingstoke is a very prohibitive place and, unlike when patients are in the Chase, relatives will not be able to visit their loved ones on a daily basis.

ÒIf the ward closes, you will be imposing a death sentence on the patients there.Ó

Some campaigners asked why less deprived areas, including Alton, were not being targeted for savings.

But health chiefs pointed out that the package of proposals, which will save around £2 million a year, also includes bed closures in Basingstoke, and that AltonÕs bed situation will be looked at next year.

Despite this, Mrs Duncan said, the government is forcing the NHPCT and the North Hampshire Hospital Trust to save £3.6 million a year.

ÒIt is important to understand the things that we are having to consider are because we are in dire straitsÓ she said.

ÒThese are money-driven proposals, which we have to put forward to the regional office.

ÒNone of this is palatable. It fills us with fear when they ask us where the savings for the other one-and-a-half million are coming from.Ó

Mrs Duncan said that the government was refusing to write off NHS debts and that local NHS trusts and PCTs were having to Òbe seen to be modernisingÓ, while at the same time meeting government targets for health care without additional cash.

Asked why hospital staff and local GPs were not told about plans to get all health authorities out of the red before they were made public, Mrs Duncan said that the PCT was under government orders not to reveal the proposals for three months after plans were first put together in the summer.

ÒThe way that we have had to go through this process is not the way that we would have chosen,Ó she said.

ÒWe had a very difficult three months, in that we were not allowed to go public with these very difficult plans. It was almost a relief to be able to tell people about the plans and to be able to talk to local staff.Ó

Mrs Duncan explained that it was likely that the final decision over whether the closure of the hospital ward would go ahead would fall into the hands of health ministers.

This would be because, should the health authority agree the plans, north HampshireÕs patient watchdog, the community health council, has the right to call the plans in.

If this happens any decision would be delayed until at least next summer.