A HOSPITAL is set to lose its inpatient mental health wards in favour of improved community-based care under proposals recommended this week.

The Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) for Hambleton, Richmondshire and Whitby, has been consulting the public on three options for the future of mental health services at The Friarage Hospital in Northallerton.

The consultation offered three options, with only one retaining the hospital’s two mental health wards.

On Thursday at An Extraordinary Governing Body meeting of the CCG, members approved ‘option two’ in the consultation report which seeks to enhance community and crisis services to support more people at home.

Patients in the CCG area who need inpatient care will be sent to Roseberry Park in Middlesbrough and West Park Hospital in Darlington.

At the meeting, Gill Collinson, CCG chief nurse, gave a presentation in which she said that 65 per cent of consultation respondents chose this option as their preferred model.

She also stressed that it was not a case of ‘closure by stealth’ of the Friarage, in response to a comment made by a member of the public during the consultation.

Ms Collinson said: “The good news that I think all people will be aware of in the Friarage is that there are new services going in; the new cancer unit and the MRI scanner and there are new forms of services going on and it will continue to change.”

The meeting, held at the Civic Centre in Northallerton, heard that the cost of running the new community services would be equal to keeping the wards open so the move was not about saving money.

Speaking afterwards, the CCG’s chief officer Janet Probert said closing the mental health wards was “absolutely not” about cost-cutting but about ensuring patients get the care they need in the community where possible.

She added: “At the moment mental health needs all the resource it can get.

“What we need to do is use that resource better so that we can get a better service for our local population.”

The transition into the new care model will be delayed due to building improvement work planned at Roseberry Park Hospital so major changes are not expected to be made until next year.