Mental health patients would have to travel to Carlisle

Opposition has already been expressed over plans to close some wards in favour of care at home.

But proposals to close mental health wards in Whitehaven and Penrith would mean losing 37 beds.

Any person needing hospital care would have to travel to a unit in Carlisle where the North Cumbria Mental Health and Learning Disabilities Trust hopes to create a centre of excellence.

Carole Harvey, the Trust's medical director, said the plans have been thoroughly researched and adapted for Cumbria.

We are concerned that ourselves and people in the west of the county are going to be faced with a skeleton service Lorraine Rockminster, Eden Mind

She said: "All of our proposals have been rural proofed.

"We have talked to the Department of Health and had a visitor from the department spend time in north Cumbria looking at ways we can adapt some of the national guidance to fit better in rural areas.

"We have to cut our coat according to our cloth, we have to do the best we can with what we have got.

"We are confident that our proposals which are out for consultation at the moment, are the best we can do."

But the manager of charity Eden Mind, Lorraine Rockminster, said she feared mental health services in the area would be weakened by the move.

She said: "It is not so much the national model that is the problem, but it is resources that are needed to apply these in rural areas.

"It is generally accepted that it needs about 20% more to fund services in rural areas.

"We are concerned that ourselves and people in the west of the county are going to be faced with a skeleton service."