EVERYONE except health service bosses themselves seems to realise the abrupt closure of Bootham Park Hospital has been a disaster for mental health patients in York.

Yes, there were problems with ageing Bootham Park. It wasn't up to the job of providing 21st century mental health care. But there had been real attempts to make improvements. And having an old and run-down NHS psychiatric hospital in York was surely better than having none at all.

That's a point made by Mick Hickling, whose wife Jane was referred to Bootham Park after suffering a breakdown related to severe post-natal depression.

In a piece written for this newspaper's Family Matters section, Mr Hickling described attending a public meeting about the hospital's closure.

"A woman in the audience ...described her own mental breakdown and the terror of being transported in a police van to a distant hospital because no bed could be found in her own city," Mr Hickling wrote.

In the light of personal testimonies such as that, bland statements from health managers that they were doing what was in patients' best interests seem utterly inadequate.

Surely, as Mr Hickling says, after a visit by Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspectors flagged up problems with the hospital's infrastructure, some short-term remedial work could have been done to ensure it could be re-registered and so remain open at least until a new hospital was built.

Instead, the hospital fell victim to shambolic NHS bureaucracy.

Too many managers from too many separate NHS organisations were unable to agree between them what to do. Then they panicked when the damning CQC report was published.

As a result, vulnerable patients face being referred to psychiatric units as far away as Middlesbrough. That's not acceptable.

York Central MP Rachael Maskell has called for an investigation into the hospital's closure. It can't come soon enough.