A call has been issued for Success Regime bosses to keep their hands off north Cumbria's cottage hospitals - with an MP saying they are not broken and therefore do not need to be fixed.

Rory Stewart, whose Penrith and the Border constituency includes four community hospitals, said he has been lobbying senior figures to shift their focus away from them.

Instead he wants to see them concentrate on the troubled Carlisle and Whitehaven acute hospitals, where he says most of the current problems in the local NHS stem from.

The Success Regime is currently carrying out a review of health services across north and west Cumbria's troubled healthcare system. Options to date include closing cottage hospital beds.

Last week League of Friends campaigners claimed they had been told by bosses that Wigton and Alston - both in Mr Stewart's patch - along with Maryport would lose their beds. 

Success Regime chiefs deny this, saying no decisions have yet been made. However they are considering the future of all hospital beds, including Brampton, Penrith and Keswick.

But Mr Stewart said closing community hospital beds - which are well-used - should not be part of any plan. 

"The key thing is around how we can make sure that this review focuses on the Cumberland Infirmary and acute trust but not the community hospitals, which are a very valuable and much-loved institution," he said.

"They are all full and have been supported for decades by local community groups."

Mr Stewart, who said he recently had a long meeting with Success Regime boss Sir Neil McKay, believes community hospitals have become "a distraction from the main objective" of the review.

"That was to address acute care in the main hospitals. To get a system that's working," he explained.

"With community hospitals, I do not think it is broken and do not think it needs fixing. The broken part is in the acute hospitals. Sir Neil McKay was brought in primarily to deal with the acute trust."

Mr Stewart added that he has been working behind the scenes to try and get his message across, also lobbying Health Minister Ben Gummer, the local health trusts and Cumbria County Council.

"I am trying to push hard to make them open their minds to the benefits of community hospitals," he said.

"They are incredibly treasured. Some doctors will disagree. They will talk about modern medicine, that the world is changing and they are not the future, but I think they are missing the reality. 

"One of the main reasons the community hospitals work so well is that they are embraced by their communities."

Earlier this week senior managers from the Cumbria Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the community hospitals, were quizzed by the Cumbria Health Scrutiny Committee.

Although the focus was mainly on the trust's recent inspection report, members did express concerns about the Success Regime review and the impact that could have on cottage hospitals.

Scrutiny chairman Neil Hughes said that the vast majority of north Cumbria's £80m health debt is from the acute hospitals, with the partnership trust having a much smaller deficit.

"Finance is clearly going to be a critical factor. We are all aware the Success Regime is looking at reducing expenditure. Is the Cumbria Partnership wholeheartedly committed to sharing the financial burden that is inevitably going to require?" he asked.

Michael Smillie, head of finance and director of strategy, said nationally the health and social care sectors are finding that costs are struggling financially and in Cumbria - due to its geography, aging population and other challenges - that is magnified.

He said his trust is currently funding its deficit from reserves, but that can't continue indefinitely, so they also need to change. Trusts are therefore working together to create a balanced system that tackles all of the issues for the longer term. "It's not a question of us being willing to bail out other parts of the system," he added.

Mr Hughes also stressed that moving more care into communities could only happen if quality home care was available.