PLANS to close Lennox Castle Hospital, which cares for more than 600

of the most seriously mentally-retarded patients in the West of

Scotland, will be laid before Greater Glasgow Health Board next month.

The run-down is expected to take place over the next six or seven

years with the majority of patients being placed in ''ordinary'' houses

in the community. Health unions and relatives' groups were concerned

yesterday that the health board envisages only 64 places being required

for patients requiring ''a very safe and structured environment'' in

continuing long-stay care.

Those in Lennox Castle are now categorised as people with learning

disabilities. At worst, this can mean people wheelchair-bound, unable to

communicate, who have to be fed and toileted.

The proposals -- part of a strategy drawn up by the Greater Community

and Mental Health Services Trust, the health board, and the social work

department -- were put before the trust yesterday at its first open

public meeting. A consultation paper is expected to be issued next

month.

The objective it sets out is to provide ''social'' support for the

bulk of patients in good quality ''ordinary'' housing, adapted or

purpose-built, on a small scale and close to local shops and amenities

but separate from their support.

Other requirements will include ''something meaningful to do''

including employment, leisure, education, social opportunities, and

domestic activities. The trust will also supply 256 continuing care beds

from small community-based sites -- 64 in each of the four social work

districts in the city.

A trust spokesman later emphasised that the proposals were not cast in

tablets of stone and that the level of 64 long-term care beds for the

most vulnerable would be subject to assessment of patients' needs.

However, Mr Jim Devine, Unison organiser, accused the health service

of opting out of provision for people with learning difficulties and the

young chronic sick.

''Many of these people have spent most of their lives there. These are

very seriously ill individuals whose primary presentation is severe

mental handicap with associated problems, behavioural difficulties,

sometimes epilepsy and physical handicap as well. They certainly need

24-hour care.''