MACMILLAN services at Evesham Community Hospital's palliative care unit, under threat of closure, may never fully recover if the ward's specialist nurses are forced to separate under the Primary Care Trust's cost cutting plans.

That is the view of Frances Smith, town councillor and chairman of the Friends of Evesham Hospital.

"Once it is closed, it will never reopen and things won't be the same again," she said.

"We are under no illusions that it will reopen and the closure will cause havoc for the health economy of Worcestershire.

"Cancer care should be improved on and added to, not taken away. We need 20 beds in the area, we have five at Evesham with brilliant high-tech facilities but we need 20, not necessarily all of them at Evesham."

Frances' comments come just two days after the original Save our Hospital campaign group reformed under the slogan Save our Services (SOS).

"The new campaign has been launched, as the cuts in services are not only the closure of three wards and services at Evesham Community Hospital," she said.

"There will also be a reduction in podiatry services, rationalising health services for the elderly, re-profiling physiotherapy and occupational therapy services," she added.

"As well as health visiting services, which will be affected, there will be a change in GP cover of the Izod Ward and there will be removal of GP out of hours county-wide service and re-profiling of school nursing services.

"The initial work of the campaign group will be to achieve public consultation on as many aspects as possible of the cuts as we believe they are significant reductions in service to the local community."

Tess Barley, Macmillan unit ward sister said: "The new 15-bed St Richard's Hospice is being built in Worcester but this was meant to be complementary to Evesham, not instead of. And who knows what the 11 staff on the Macmillan unit are going to do!"

One thing's for sure, we won't be going anywhere as a team and it's the team that makes the difference."

Dr Judy Dale, consultant in palliative medicine who is involved with Evesham Community Hospital, is concerned about what alternative palliative beds will mean to the hospital: "What alternative would be found? The level of beds being offered as an alternative is nothing like the ones in the Evesham palliative care unit.

She added: "Twenty special palliative care beds are needed and yet there is only access to 15 with the threat of cuts set to possibly reduce this amount.

"We have five beds in Evesham, St Richard's has five and there are five at St Michael's, that's 15, we need 20."

The Evesham Journal first spearheaded the fund-raising campaign back in February 1994 to raise £50,000 to help fund the Macmillan cancer care unit, the first of its kind in Worcestershire.

South Worcestershire Community NHS Trust backed the project boosting the funds by a further £80,000 towards the building of the new hospital entrance. Thanks to the vital support of fund-raisers in Evesham, by January 1995 the unit was already up and running with plans well under way for an official opening, which was performed by the Princess Royal, in May 1995.

Gillian Lord, head of service development for Macmillan Cancer Support, said: "Macmillan Cancer Support is in close consultation with the management of the South Worcestershire PCT about the future of Macmillan services for local people affected by cancer. We are working together with them to ensure that people are provided with the best possible and most appropriate care."

Frances concluded: "This is emotive for a lot of people. We know why people have to go in there so this a very emotive issue, particularly for those who've lost loved ones."