More than 20,000 people have sent a Valentine's Day message to Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, declaring a vote of no confidence in the Government's Success Regime .

A petition launched by the We Need West Cumberland Hospital campaign group in September last year - following the publication of controversial options to cut services - has now closed.

A total of 20,200 people have signed it, accusing the so-called Success Regime of betraying the public with its plans to downgrade services and close beds - including sending mums in labour more than 40 miles from Whitehaven to give birth in Carlisle.

The petition demands that the Government steps in to stop the plans to strip local services from going through.

Combined with a further 10,000 collected in just over two months as part of the News & Star Save Our Services campaign, it shows the scale of the opposition to the damaging proposals.

Totalling more than 30,000 signatures, these two petitions demonstrate the strength of feeling from the public. On top of this more than 50 local GPs have spoken out, along with consultants, midwives, ambulance staff and others.

Annette Robson, of the We Need West Cumberland Hospital group, said the Success Regime has failed to deliver on its brief and the petition shows the public has no confidence in its solutions.

"We were initially optimistic that the Success Regime would look at our rural location, understand how important it is to have a fully functioning hospital in Whitehaven, and recognise the recruitment problems were born from the uncertainty that services were being moved from there to Carlisle Infirmary," she explained.

"We needed them to embrace the ideas and passion of clinicians and work with them to ensure that the people of west Cumbria have the hospital they need and deserve. Instead it appears their lack of vision means they have failed to come up with any innovative ideas or solutions for west Cumbria in their proposed options and so we are calling on the Government to intervene and save services at West Cumberland Hospital."

Retired consultant Mahesh Dhebar added: "The whole exercise of appointing a Success Regime to sort out the health care problems for west Cumbria is the most successful failure that the public has witnessed and it is a real missed opportunity."

The petitions are now being sent to the Government, Success Regime and local health leaders.

The message reads: "The Success Regime do not offer options that are acceptable to the people of west Cumbria.

"We have no confidence in the Success Regime and demand that services - including 24/7 consultant-led maternity, children’s services and emergency care - be retained and restored at West Cumberland Hospital."