Mental health bosses have withdrawn plans to stop providing out-of-hours cover to assess patients in crisis from October 1.

They have agreed to keep the existing community service running until January to give commissioners more time to make alternative provision.

Cumbrian MP Tim Farron had expressed "deep concerns" about the move, which he branded "inhumane" - fearing it would leave people with mental health problems without access to assessment and treatment at nights.

But Dr Andrew Brittlebank, medical director at the Cumbria Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (CPFT), said this was not the case.

He said the issues only relate to out-of-hours community mental health assessments, to determine whether a patient should be detained under the Mental Health Act, not those on in-patient wards.

He added that the crisis service provided by the CPFT remains unchanged.

Two doctors are required to provide a mental health assessment of a patient, to see if detention is necessary, one of who must be specially trained under section 12 of the act.

Dr Brittlebank explained that in the past, this was mainly carried out by GPs or police surgeons.

But due to shortages of qualified medics, CPFT psychiatrists have provided cover for the last seven years, under an informal agreement.

However due to growing pressures on these staff, and concerns about the safety of driving long hours after a full day shift, the trust had given notice that it would stop providing the cover from October 1.

However Dr Brittlebank said that, following urgent meetings with commissioners, they have agreed to carry on until January to allow more time to train up GPs.

In the meantime, commissioners have agreed to fund taxis for those staff who are called out - which he said currently happens on most on-call shifts.

Dr Brittlebank, a consultant psychiatrist who works on the on-call rota, stressed that at present many of the call outs could be prevented by reacting more quickly to situations in daytime hours.

He said often they are called out at night to a patient that staff have been aware of since much earlier that day.

"If we arrive at 8pm to meet the other doctor and carry out the assessment, that takes an hour. Then you have the paper work and wait for an ambulance. The patient might not get to where they need to be until nearly midnight, when they've known about them since lunchtime," he explained.

"Is that good? I personally don't think that is good enough."

He added that national watchdog the Care Quality Commission recently raised concerns about out-of-hours cover on the CPFT's in-patient units, so the trust instead needs to focus its consultant cover on those wards.

On the community assessments, he added: "We are not stopping from October. But we are looking that, by January 1 we will be able to pull back completely and focus our experts on our most vulnerable patients at our in-patient units."

Mr Farron, who represents South Lakes, had labelled the plan to withdraw cover as "dangerous and inhumane" and questioned whether patients and the public had been been consulted about the move.

“It seems to me that this action does not put the people in crisis at its heart and it runs the risk of becoming a second-rate service," he said.