HEALTH officials have been accused of moving the goalposts in the consultation procedure concerning the long-term future of in-patient care at Romsey Hospital.

Five options were included in the original draft review of Community Services Strategy provided by the Eastleigh and Test Valley South Primary Care Trust and New Forest Primary Care Trust Alliance.

Now the Alliance says, that after further consultation with numerous groups including MPs, patients and league of friends groups across the two primary care trusts areas, the options have been whittled down to two.

The first option involves reducing the number of beds at five hospitals including Romsey. And the second involves axing all the hospital beds and farming people out to nursing homes and their own homes

Consultations with the public about these options will begin later this summer.

Sara Tiller, spokeswoman for Eastleigh and Test Valley South Primary Care Trust, said the alliance had a lot of feedback and emphasised that people who needed hospital care "will still get it" but the primary care trusts would concentrate on getting people home quicker with better after care at home.

"Since the April the PCTs have been conducting a 'listening exercise' to gather local people's views about the Community Services Strategy. This included a reference group of 40 local people. One thousand questionnaires were distributed to the public (The Advertiser received several hundred request for the forms), letters sent to 64 stakeholders, six annual public meeting and one-to-one interviews with patients.

Meetings were also held with community groups and forums, staff, local councils, said Sara.

Spokeswoman for the League of Friends of Romsey Hospital and the Romsey Hospital Appeal, Jean Denham, said: "We are deeply disappointed by this news. A letter in The Romsey Advertiser on April 15th from John Richards, chief executive of the NHS Primary Care Trust, stated that five options were being considered, ranging from doing nothing to closing beds.

"How did the five options become two and where do we go from here? Both apparently involve bed closures. We were told that various groups would be consulted, but with this, as with the original suggestion the first we learn about it is from a newspaper. Were local doctors consulted on this latest announcement? The public was invited to submit views, will we be told what they were?

Mrs Denham added: "We are in favour of careful, sensible spending but the PCT should never forget that the NHS was set up to look after those who are ill and that it is the public who pay for it through taxation and national insurance. Make savings if needed but not at the expense of the sick, the old, the least well off and those most vulnerable in our society.

They need to have appropriate care available reasonably near to their homes. We have that in Romsey Hospital at the moment."