The financial crisis in the NHS has forced the closure of two mental health wards in the constituency of Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary.

The closures, described as temporary, have been forced on Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust by a deficit of a little under £2 million.

In a letter seen by The Times, Srinivas Suribhatla, a consultant psychiatrist, says: “As clinicians we do not support these cuts in service but the trust board has decided that no alternative means of cost reduction are available at this point in the financial year.”

His letter to colleagues announced the second closure: the 20-bed Langley ward at the Bennion Centre at Glenfield Hospital. The trust had said yesterday that the Gwendolen ward at the Evington Centre at Leicester General Hospital had also been closed.

The cuts represent a 23 per cent reduction in the beds used for assessing and treating elderly patients with dementia.

Tim Loughton, the Tory spokesman on mental health, said that the closures were endangering the public.