THE BATTLE to safeguard facilities for elderly people at Bishopstoke's Mount Hospital is set to move into the council chamber.

Winchester and Eastleigh Healthcare NHS Trust has announced plans to switch 36 beds to Winchester's Royal Hampshire County Hospital.

Fears are growing over the future of other facilities at the Mount site and residents have been urged to back a campaign launched by local councillors.

Now the battle is being stepped up. At Thursday's full Eastleigh council meeting Bishopstoke councillor Andrew Moore will be urging the local authority to back the plea to preserve services at the Mount.

As well as the in-patient geriatric ward, Councillor Moore will point out that there are several community health services provided on the site - day hospital, physiotherapy and consultant outpatient clinics, along with stroke rehabilitation.

He says that access to these services, without the need to travel to either Winchester or Southampton, is vitally important to Bishopstoke and Eastleigh residents.

The council is being urged to call on the strategic health authority and Whitehall to ensure that not only do the existing services stay in the Eastleigh area but plans are drawn up to improve and increase them.

Trust chiefs have told staff that the proposals will not lead to any job cuts with everyone being given the option to carry on working at the Royal Hampshire County Hospital.

But trust chief executive Rod Halls is also on record as saying that the objective is to have moved most services from The Mount by the end of the calendar year.

The future of the Mount has been under the microscope for more than ten years.

The cramped buildings, which currently house rehabilitation beds for the elderly, are past their sell by date and would need a big cash injection to bring them up to standard.

Trends in elderly health care have also changed with more emphasis on rehabilitation at home.

Chief executive of Eastleigh and Test Valley South Primary Care Trust John Richards says: "We would like to reassure local people that the trust is committed to ensuring valuable community services currently available at the Mount are provided at the same level in the future.

"It is too early to say how these services will be provided. We are currently working with Winchester and Eastleigh Healthcare Trust and the Community Health Council on a number of options."