An angry Geoffrey Clifton Brown has challenged Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt in the Commons over the future of community hospitals in The Cotswolds.

Mr Clifton Brown told Ms. Hewitt it was completely unacceptable that four community hospitals in his constituency should be under threat of closure.

Fairford and Tetbury face imminent closure of beds, with both Bourton and Moreton likely to face similar cuts in the near future.

This was seriously affecting the health of many constituents, Mr Clifton Brown told the Secretary of State.

He said, “The Government were elected on a manifesto promising encouragement of community hospitals in our national health service. If the Secretary of State's words today are to mean anything, will she consider the situation in my constituency, where two out of four community hospitals have already closed their in-patient facilities and where the other two are in a parlous predicament? Whatever the arguments are about finance and deficits, that is simply unacceptable to my constituents.”

But in her reply, the minister refused to accept his point, saying that the proposals for local service reconfiguration need to be developed locally by the primary care trusts in consultation with local people.

Commenting Mr Clifton-Brown said, “I managed to have a private word with the Minister afterwards, stressing that if the government wanted the frail and the elderly to remain in the community as long as possible, it was essential to have the backing of community hospitals - otherwise people would have to take up beds in district hospitals that could be used by other patients. I begged her to look again at the situation in The Cotswold and she has promised to do so,”

He stressed, “This Government was elected on a promise to protect community hospitals. They have certainly broken that pledge.”