A daily newspaper has launched a fight to keep mental health beds in a Staffordshire town.

The Burton Mail’s Save Our Stanhope campaign was launched after health bosses announced, as part of a review, that their preferred option was to axe all of the beds at the Margaret Stanhope Centre.

The centre provides 24-hour in-patient care and treatment for people who are in an acute state of mental illness.

The Mail has described the move as an ill-judged and unacceptable attack on health care in Burton which must be defeated for the good of the vulnerable and defenceless, as well as the welfare of the community at large.

Said editor Kevin Booth: “Health chiefs appear unable or unwilling to accept that some people with mental health problems cannot be treated in the community and must have inpatient psychiatric care.”

“We are determined to ensure this provision remains in Burton and would urge readers to back our campaign.

“We have three months to ‘Save our Stanhope’.”

The campaign has been backed by the community leader from whom the centre takes its name, Margaret Stanhope, who was chairman of South Staffordshire Health Authority for more than 20 years.

Burton MP Andrew Griffiths has also thrown his weight behind the campaign, arguing that axing the Stanhope’s beds ‘would have a massively damaging impact on the community’.

The MP, who will collect signatures for a Mail-backed petition to save the Stanhope on Saturday, said: “Any family can be devastated by the impact of a loved one suffering mental health problems.

“It would only add to the stress those families are feeling to make them trek halfway across the county in order to see the people they are so desperately worried about.”

The Mail’s campaign has also been endorsed by Dr Matt Long, leader of the Friends of Margaret Stanhope Forum who said keeping the centre open would benefit the whole community, not just those who are mentally ill.