That was the feeling of Southwick residents who yesterday lost their battle to save their village surgery from closure.

Despite an impassioned plea by members of the parish council and ward councillor Ken Carter campaigners were told the closure of the rural outlet was an inevitability.

Members of the Mid Hampshire Primary Care Trust board yesterday voted in favour of supporting the request by Wickham Practice, which runs the surgery, to close it on the grounds that it was not a good use of resources.

Reading from a report, PCT member Karen Ashton told members that after a consultation period it was felt GPs' time could be better spent based at Wickham rather than making the trip to hold a weekly surgery at Southwick.

She said: "With the NHS plan of equitable and improved healthcare for all, the use of the GPs' time to serve a small population is disadvantaging the majority of the practice's registered population."

Currently the surgery is open one morning a week for villagers who cannot make the trip to Wickham to receive medical care.

Practice partner Dr Stephen Smallwood said: "At the moment Southwick gets a service that other villages don't get and it is difficult to see why we should continue to provide that."

However, according to campaigners, the decision to close the surgery will spell disaster for the elderly residents in the village.

At the meeting Councillor Carter told members: "We can all use statistics but behind each one of them is a person.

"You could say that it isn't a large number but each one is a person who is feeling scared that their surgery will close and concerned about what they are going to do to get medical care in the future."

Afterwards Cllr Carter said: "There are people in our village who have been let down by the NHS today. To say that they are disadvantaging the rest of the population in Wickham by getting a medical service in their community is unbelievable."

His views were echoed by Southwick parish council chairman June Bazalgette, who said: "There are people who have lived in Southwick all their lives who simply won't be able to make the trip into Wickham.

"They have no cars and a imited bus service. The bus stop is a good quarter of a mile walk from the surgery in Wickham. Even that will be too much for some of these people."

The surgery will be wound down over the next three months during which time the PCT have promised to address transport problems for Southwick patients to get to Wickham and arrangements for prescription deliveries.