The proposals, set out in a letter to staff at the East Kent NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust, are to cover an overspend of �1.75m.

Health chiefs have blamed the shortfall on having to cover a continuing shortage of consultants and nursing staff.

Workers in the mental health sector say the move could lead to people not receiving the care they need.

'Two options'

The health trust is looking at two options for cutting costs.

One is the closure of the ward at St Martin's mental health hospital in Canterbury and the other is to reduce the amount of time used by day hospitals which would affect older mental health patients.

Phillip Newhouse, spokesman for the Federation of Smaller Mental Health Agencies, said: "We are going to have a severe shortage of inpatient care.

"We'll have a situation where the people cannot volunteer to be admitted into hospital - it will be a case of waiting until they're so ill that they need to be sectioned under the Mental Health Act."

He claimed that funding for mental health was being diverted to acute health services in general hospitals.

But chief executive of the NHS trust, David Parr, said: "We have faced a budgetary position simply because we're faced with a national continuing shortage of consultants and nursing staff.

"We have had to go into the red in order to make sure that we provide the staff to provide a safe and efficient service to the clients that we care for here in east Kent."