A PEER has issued a last-minute appeal to health chiefs to abandon their plan to close a community hospital and provide treatment for seriously ill patients in places like care homes.

As a public consultation over the future of the Lambert Memorial Hospital in Thirsk came to an end, Baroness McIntosh of Pickering told NHS service commissioners that local health services across the region played a crucial role.

The former Thirsk and Malton MP said Hambleton, Richmondshire and Whitby clinical commissioning group (CCG) should frontload finances onto primary care to ensure elderly and vulnerable patients are kept out of acute hospitals and casualty.

In 2013, Baroness McIntosh said her father and Middleton-in-Teesdale GP, Dr Alastair McIntosh, had died after being failed by the NHS, due a lack of local health provision.

In a letter to the CCG, she said: “Community hospitals should not just be considered as buildings but as providing a vital service in rural communities where the distances for patients to be transported and for their families to visit are great.

“Special regard should be had to treating patients in rural areas and the role of GPs in this regard. Access to services provided should be rural-proofed. Distance to services is of key importance in rural areas.”

Baroness McIntosh added the 14-bed hospital’s closure would be “bad for the whole of the Hambleton and Richmondshire area and impair positive outcomes for those living locally”.

The peer backed calls from many residents who want the CGG to reopen the Lambert and replace South Tees NHS Trust with a North Yorkshire-based service provider.

The CCG insists its plan to close the Lambert, which closed last year after the trust said it could not recruit nurses, would ensure care closer to home for the majority of the population, It is considering the results of the consultation, which included 51 events and speaking with nearly 900 residents.