Maryport health campaigners are turning their attentions to the care of people who are dying.

This week, Maryport Health Alliance submitted its suggested options for the future of hospital services in the town to health bosses planning changes across the area.

It wants to see eight of the current 13 overnight beds retained, saving some money while retaining a key service in the town.

But members fear the Success Regime may push ahead with its plans to remove all overnight beds, ignoring the town’s favoured option and leaving no palliative care service at the hospital, which has become renowned for its high standard of care to people at the end of their lives.

Alliance member Kate Whitmarsh described the Success Regime’s consultation as “a £2 million waste of time”.

The alliance is calling on the community to help fight for alternative end-of-life care services in the town as hard as it has fought for beds to be retained.

Next month Hospice at Home West Cumbria, medical professionals and palliative care experts will meet in Maryport to look at what would happen if overnight beds were removed from the hospital. They will call on the community to fight for the rights of those who want to die in their own town, where family and friends have easy access to visit and 24/7 care is available.

They will be asked to give their views on how end-of-life care could be provided without hospital beds.

The alliance was born out of the campaign to save hospital services at Maryport.

It is made up of members of the Save Our Beds campaign and League of Friends along with medical professionals and members of the community.

Led by Dr John Howarth, deputy chief executive of the Cumbria Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, they came up with two options for the future.

Their preferred option would be to retain an eight-bed inpatient facility.

An alternative, which is not favoured by the alliance, would be for the hospital to only serve day patients but to bring a wider variety of outpatient services to the town, reducing the need to travel to Carlisle or Whitehaven.

Bill Barnes, chairman of the Save Our Beds campaign, Maurice Tate of the league of friends and hospital chaplain the Rev Ken Wright all agreed that the chances of option one being selected were slim despite a national shortage of hospital beds.