BOSSES at the Royal Hospital Haslar in Gosport are pulling the plug on round-the-clock opening because there is so little demand.

The centre will now revert to opening between 8am and 9pm following a three-month trial of opening 24-hours a day, seven days a week.

There was an average of 7.8 patients per night, which meant a total of 711 patients between July 1 and September 30.

Nurses would need to see nearly three times as many patients - about 20 a night - to meet national standards.

The night-time centre at the military hospital was suspended last year when staff were called away to serve in Iraq. It was originally planned to reinstate a full service on their return.

But Fareham and Gosport Primary Care Trust and Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust (PHT) bosses decided to run the service down

Save Haslar campaigners say the centre was not given a chance.

Spokesman Peter Edgar said: "I think local people will be extremely disappointed that the experiment wasn't carried on for a longer period.

Sandy Carss, consultant in emergency medicine at PHT, added: "We carefully monitored the usage and figures show that visits at night-time were less than we would expect to see."

Health chiefs are now encouraging local people who have been injured or had minor accidents to use the centre as their first choice for treatment during daytime hours.

A document detailing the options for the future of NHS services in Fareham and Gosport can be seen at www.farehamandgosportpct.nhs.uk