A CAMPAIGN has been launched to safeguard facilities currently offered by Bishopstoke's Mount Hospital to the elderly people of Bishopstoke and Eastleigh.

The move comes in the wake of relocation proposals from Winchester and Eastleigh Healthcare NHS Trust to switch 36 beds to Winchester's Royal Hampshire County Hospital.

Trust chiefs have told staff that the proposals will not lead to any job cuts with everyone being given the option to carry on working at the Royal Hampshire County.

But trust chief executive Rod Halls is also on record as saying that the objective is to have moved most services from the Mount by the end of the calendar year.

But county, borough and parish councillors for the area have banded together in a bid to make sure old folk from the area don't lose out.

"The future of the Mount has been under the microscope for more than ten years but Bishopstoke Parish Council chairman Anne Winstanley told the Daily Echo: "We appreciate that the wards are old and difficult to nurse in.

"But we want to be reassured that, whatever happens, the service to the old people is maintained and improved."

Now, county councillor Glynn Davies-Dear Cllr Winstanley and borough councillor Andrew Moore have banded together in a bid to protect community health facilities such as the current day hospital, outpatient clinics, physiotherapy and a social services day centre.

Cllr Davies-Dear said: "We probably accept that there is a need for 36 beds to go to Winchester, but what worries us is the day hospital and outpatient facilities because, at the moment, there doesn't appear to be a viable site for them to move to.

"The original deal, as we understand it, was that this had to be closed and sold to generate the money to relocate - but that the day hospital and outpatient facilities were all going to be moved to a good, sensible, central location in Eastleigh town.

"It now appears that the site they had in mind will be lost. There is a horrible fear that Moorgreen Hospital at West End will be chosen and that will be so inaccessible as to be laughable. We are not going to stand for them offering facilities which are inadequate."

Cllr Moore is urging local people to get behind the campaign by contacting him on 023 8032 2495 or Cllr Winstanley on 023 8064 1902. He said: "We want to preserve as much as possibly can be preserved for the community of Bishopstoke."

Chief executive of Eastleigh and Test Valley South Primary Care Trust, John Richards, told the Daily Echo: "We would like to reassure local people that the trust is committed to ensuring valuable community services currently available at the Mount are provided at the same level in the future."

But he added: "It is too early to say how these services will be provided. We are currently working with Winchester and Eastleigh Healthcare Trust and the Community Health Council on a number of options.

"These could involve new ways of working - such as providing services in people's own homes. Once the options have been developed, local people will be able to have their say in full public consultation."