CARLISLE'S under-pressure infirmary could LOSE beds, while more patients will be brought from Whitehaven for urgent care if radical new plans to overhaul the local NHS are approved.

Health bosses insist the Cumberland Infirmary would cope with the additional numbers without major expansion, but concerns have been raised by staff, ambulance crews and residents.

Stephen Eames, chief executive at North Cumbria University Hospitals NHS Trust, says the plan would also see some patients from Carlisle travelling to Whitehaven for planned operations in future.

The Government's Success Regime this week launched a 12-week consultation over options published in a controversial new report.

The Future of Healthcare document proposes that the total number of beds in Carlisle and Whitehaven will reduce from about 600 to 500 by 2020.

It also proposes the loss of community hospital beds in Wigton, Alston and Maryport, with total numbers dropping from 133 to 104.

Instead more care would be provided in people's own homes, organised by new care teams, dubbed Integrated Care Communities (ICCs).

Yet with the infirmary already struggling to cope, there are concerns that less beds and more emergencies will fuel problems.

A key area is maternity, with bosses wanting to downgrade Whitehaven's consultant-led unit and instead make most women travel to Carlisle to give birth. Only low risk births would take place at the West Cumberland Hospital, meaning an estimated extra 900 women would have their babies in Carlisle - roughly 17 more each week.

This is a concern because the existing Carlisle unit is regularly busy.

Exactly two years ago The Cumberland News reported that demand was so high, that bosses were having to bring in community midwives to work on the labour ward to ensure it was safely staffed. Meanwhile mums-to-be waiting for inductions and caesareans were experiencing delays.

Mr Eames said this is no longer the case - and he believes that internal reconfiguration could increase the size of the infirmary's maternity and labour ward without major capital investment.

The Success Regime masterplan also proposes moving more seriously ill adults and children to Carlisle.

Earlier this year we revealed huge pressures on A&E were delaying ambulance handovers at both hospitals, with 115 patients waiting more than an hour and 227 more than 30 minutes in January alone. A significant number of these were in Carlisle.

Although A&E performance has been improving in recent months, the trust remains under pressure and paramedic Mike Oliver, of health union Unison, is concerned about the impact of more transfers.

"Carlisle is still as busy as ever on certain days. Mondays, Tuesdays and Saturdays are the busiest," he said.

Bed-blocking, due to patients who no longer need an acute bed having nowhere else to go, has recently been described by the trust's chief operating officer Helen Ray as one of their biggest challenges.

And campaigners predict that the loss of community hospital beds, along with an eventual loss of 100 beds across the two main hospitals, will simply result in more elderly patients having delayed discharges.

A nursing insider told The Cumberland News this is still a problem, with beds still in high demand at the infirmary.

But Mr Eames said the masterplan addresses all of these issues long term.

"Obviously we've got a lot of pressures in both hospitals. But it is all linked to Integrated Care Communities and this whole thrust around care closer to home," he added.

"At any one time, 20 to 30 per cent of our beds are occupied by people who actually, if there were alternatives, wouldn't be there. It does sound slightly odd when you look at it today, but if we weren't caring for those patients then we have got too many beds."

The Success Regime implies that the Cumberland Infirmary would become the focus for more complex emergency care, while the West Cumberland Hospital would carry out more planned surgery.

Mr Eames stressed it won't just be about patients from the west coming to Carlisle, adding: "It can and will work the other way."

Carlisle mum Kirsty Hopley is among those who has backed the Save Our Services campaign. She said she is very concerned about the safety of women and babies being transferred along the A595.

"I can't imagine having to travel all the way from Whitehaven to Carlisle in an emergency on what the police called Cumbria's most dangerous road in 2015. This could be the difference between life or death for some babies and mothers," she said.

"I'm also concerned about the pressure that the Cumberland Infirmary will be under. My experience there was amazing but is it capable of managing so many extra patients?"