About 400 people packed into a Whitehaven church for a feisty public meeting to discuss the future of the area’s health services.

Last night’s event, organised by the Success Regime, saw a passionate audience grill health bosses for 90 minutes.

Held in the United Reformed Church, the meeting saw issues such as recruitment, journey times, maternity, and the retention of services raised by angry and emotional members of the public.

Speaking at the meeting were members of the campaign group, We Need West Cumberland Hospital, Mahesh Dhebar and Siobhan Gearing. 

Mr Dhebar said the problem for health bosses was that they “can’t sustain, recruit or afford’’.

And he said the use of locums, due to recruitment issues, was a problem as they “don’t have a feeling of belonging to a society’’.

Mrs Gearing asked the panel: “How many more patients will die before you know what are doing?’’

And Cumbria County councillor Christine Wharrior also raised the issue of hospital consultants being unable to “speak openly’’ about the failings of the health trust.

Health campaigners have previously said many services, including trauma surgery, have already been moved to Carlisle without public consultation. 

They are also fighting for a consultant-led maternity unit, 24-hour paediatric beds and a Special Care Baby Unit to be retained at the West Cumberland Hospital.

The panel of health bosses, which included Stephen Singleton, medical director of the local Success Regime and Stephen Eames, chief executive of North Cumbria University Hospitals Trust, agreed with many of the public’s concerns stating plans were being looked at to transfer some services back from the Cumberland Infirmary to the West Cumberland Hospital and admitted they had not shared enough information on how medical decisions were made.

Health chiefs also acknowledged the audience’s anger that they had not been listened to by previous health regimes.

Following an emotional outburst from a member of the audience over maternity services, Dr Singleton said he “felt sad’’ having listened to the public who “felt they had been tricked in the past’’ but there would now be a “period of reflection and listening’’.

He also said the Success Regime had been working on recruitment, including approaching Sellafield about how they attract staff.

“We have thought long and hard about incentives,’’ Dr Singleton said.

Mr Eames said no decisions had been made about the area’s health services. “If I thought (people) were dying in the back of ambulances I would do something about it,’’ he said.

After being handed a list of services which had been transferred from the West Cumberland Hospital to the Cumberland Infirmary he said he would “analyse it and then respond’’ to the public at a later date.

The public meetings continue today at Keswick in the Skiddaw Hotel from 12.30-2.30pm, and at Maryport Rugby Club, Mealpot Road from 6.30-8.30pm. A public meeting was also held yesterday in Millom.

The Success Regime was announced by the Secretary of State in June last year, to help create the right conditions for high quality health and social care to develop in Cumbria.