FEWER beds could be available for cancer patients under plans to close Essex County Hospital.

Despite a £20million extension at Colchester General Hospital, beds in cancer care could be cut when the service moves out of Essex County Hospital, in Lexden Road.

The board, which runs Colchesters’ hospitals, agreed last month to transfer cancer and radiotherapy to Colchester General Hospital, in Turner Road, Full details will be revealed in April, but Peter Murphy, chief executive of Colchester Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust, said: “There will be a reduction of beds as part of this plan, but there won’t necessarily be a reduction of wards where we take the beds out.

“What we are striving to have at the end of this is sufficient capacity to meet the demands in the local economy, but also some flexibility so we can open up beds and close them depending on demand.

“Our problem is we don’t have any spare capacity. We have never had an empty ward we can bring back into use and close depending on demand.”

Fifty-two more beds have been created at the general hospital in the last year, but 28 will be lost when Great Bentley ward closes.

More beds will become available when work is completed on the new £20million two-storey building, but it may not be enough to accommodate all 32 beds currently at Essex County Hospital, which will be lost when it closes.

The hospital said it is looking at increasingly efficiency by making its wards and theatres more productive and treating more patients in the community or as day patients.

Bob Russell, Colchester MP, said he wanted to be satisfied the changes would not come at the expense of patient care.

Mr Russell said: “We have to accept that medical advances mean lengthy stays in hospital are less now than they were a generation ago.

“What I need to satisfy myself about is that the growing population of Colchester and north Essex does not require the number of beds it currently has.

“In itself it’s not necessarily a downgrading. What we need to establish is that fewer beds does not represent patients getting the quality and level of treatment they need.”