Southwold hospital has been recommended for permanent closure, along with three others in the Great Yarmouth and Waveney area.

HealthEast, which commissions health services in the area, will make its final decision on Thursday following a public consultation.

The hospital in Southwold, which has been closed since August due to staff shortages, had provided 15 beds.

A spokesman for the Great Yarmouth and Waveney Clinical Commissioning Group, said: 'During the consultations, the Southwold community said the current out of hospital model would not work in the same way in more rural areas. As a result, the CCG will work with the local community and clinicians to design a model with out of hospital services and appropriate beds with care in the local area.

'The CCG will aim to put the new out of hospital services in place as quickly as possible. Once this happens, the CCG anticipates that there will not be a need for the GP community hospital beds at Southwold Hospital and would then be able to permanently close the hospital.'

The other hospital beds which are recommended to go are at the Patrick Stead in Halesworth, Northgate in Great Yarmouth and All Hallows Hospital in Bungay.

They are due to be replaced with out of hospital teams and local NHS 'beds with care'.

The announcement follows two public consultations held over the summer.

During that time more than 1,900 responses were received, eight public meetings were held and over 120,000 consultation documents were distributed across Great Yarmouth and Waveney.