Last updated 19:51, Thursday, 25 September 2008

THE rebuilding of West Cumbria’s cottage hospitals, which we exclusively reveal today, marks a massive turnaround in just two years.

The patient is risen, revived and raring to go after its plight looked terminal in 2006.

The Times & Star is proud to have played a small part in showing our health chiefs the error of their ways back then.

We were able to reflect the strength of feeling in the community that this would have been one surgical cut too far for the local health service.

A campaign against the proposed closures forced a rethink; people power, a second opinion, won the day.

Instead of looking for a short-term financial fix, the area’s health chiefs were persuaded that our cottage hospitals could play a long-term role in bringing services closer to people, while reducing pressure on our main hospitals.

They placed community hospitals firmly at the centre of their Closer To Home consultations.

Now we learn that £250 million will be ploughed into rebuilding eight community hospitals including those at Cockermouth, Maryport and Keswick.

The key now is to deliver an improved range of services to ensure that the new community hospitals are well used; in some cases there’s talk of them becoming ‘village’ sites that can offer other public services. They will complement what’s on offer at West Cumbria’s planned new district hospital.

These new buildings can totally alter the health service landscape of West Cumbria - for the better.