MAJOR plans to close the doors on a £7million mental health unit in East Lancashire have moved one step closer to becoming a reality.

Health bosses have approved an outline business case to replace Maplewood, the low-secure unit at the former Calderstone Hospital site, with a new facility at the Maghull Health Park in Sefton.

Mersey Care, which has run the Whalley provision since July 2016, is expecting to hear back regarding funding in November, and whether it wins NHS Improvement and Department of Health approval by the following February.

Protests have previously been organised by Unison, the health services union, in opposition to the gradual winding down of the old Calderstones estate, with the threat of hundreds of jobs being lost to East Lancashire.

But the outcome of an NHS consultation in early 2017 ruled that older institutions, like Calderstones, would be phased out in preference to smaller state-of-the-art locations.

The number of low-secure patients provided by Mersey Care had reduced by 20 per cent, from 81 to 64, and is expected to drop to 40 by the end of next March.

A Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust spokesman said: “Following a public consultation, NHS England announced in 2017 that they will no longer commission forensic learning disability inpatient services on Mersey Care's Whalley site.

"The trust has therefore consulted with our service users, their families, commissioners and clinical staff to create a new model of care.

"After a thorough appraisal, our board of directors were this week asked to approve the preferred option to develop a business case for a state of the art, low-secure forensic hospital in Maghull.

"The new model of care has been fully clinically approved by senior clinicians working across the region and in consultation with our service users and stakeholders. This £33million plan will further establish the Maghull Health Park as a centre for excellence in the delivery of forensic learning disability and mental health care.

"Mersey Care will continue to work with NHS England and NHS Improvement as the planning, financial and contractual stages progress in the months ahead.”

Unison representatives from the former Calderstones site were unavailable for comment as the Lancashire Telegraph went to press.

However Martin Garlick, the Unison deputy convenor at Calderstones, said there was concerns over the hundreds of jobs in Whalley which may be lost.

He said: “We are worried about the service users and their families that are moving from Lancashire to Merseyside.

"We are also concerned about what is going to happen on that site.

"If more jobs are provided that’s fantastic, but if there’s not there’s going to be nursing staff, office staff, catering staff - around 500 people - out of a job.

"They are lifting the services from Whalley and putting them into Maghull."