The government has made an extra £750m (€1.1bn; $1.4bn) available to new and existing community hospitals in England over the next five years in a bid to regenerate diagnostic and outpatient treatment services closer to where people live.

Some of the money will go towards saving some of the local hospitals currently threatened with closure, said the secretary of state for health, Patricia Hewitt.

But campaigning groups such as Community Hospitals Acting Nationally Together (CHANT) have said the extra cash comes too late for many of the 70 community hospitals that are set to close because of financial problems in the NHS. CHANT said that 10 community hospitals closed in the first six months of this year.

The announcement of extra funding for community services follows the white paper published in January …