An MP provoked the ire of constituents campaigning for health services closer to home - by sending them details of three-hour bus journeys to far-off hospitals.
Residents of Berwick-Upon-Tweed have, for months, been raising concerns about the healthcare provision in their town.
They claim 100-mile round trips to access healthcare cause huge distress and cost to unwell residents and their families, while the distance from emergency care could put people at risk.
Northumberland health chiefs say that while new "virtual appointments" or outpatient services might be introduced to Berwick in future, it would not be possible or safe to provide an A&E or specific things like cardiology, cancer and stroke services in the town.
In order for these to be "protected and resources adequately", they say, they can only be provided at a small number of large, specialist sites in the region.
At the end of February, Berwick MP Anne-Marie Trevelyan wrote to constituents who had contacted her about the healthcare campaign, offering to update them on the progress of the town's planned new hospital.
The MP, who says she is "working closely with stakeholders" on the project as well as campaigning nationally for fairer NHS funding in remote areas, also provided a list of the health services currently available in Berwick.
But it was her inclusion of Google Maps-style route plans, directing people to hospitals south of Berwick on public transport, that drew fury from those who received them.
The routes featured included a more than three-hour trek to the emergency hospital in Cramlington and two-hour journeys to North Tyneside General Hospital, which require unwell people to use buses and trains and to walk for at least 20 minutes.
Caron Astley was among the campaigners who received the letter - and she said it had made her "extremely angry".
She said: "It was thoughtless and insulting to think showing bus journeys of two, three and even four hours was appropriate for desperate, ill, worried patients.
"It demonstrates, sadly, just how far removed Mrs Trevelyan is from the realities of life for many of her constituents here in Berwick."
She said the politician's pledge to look further into public transport issues to help constituents access "excellent" health facilities elsewhere missed the campaigners' point.
Writing back to the MP, she told her: "What Berwick needs and wants is excellent facilities here."
Fellow hospital campaigner, Michael Cox, added: "The reply is ill conceived and condescending.
"[Mrs Trevelyan] is out of touch with people who need treatment for often very serious conditions that is available to many people in the UK without the need to travel for protracted periods whilst feeling poorly. "
Sonia Cooper said: "If anything it proves how difficult it is to attend the other hospitals and therefore more important we have more services in Berwick.
"The timetables should’ve been used by the MP to support the campaign and taken to meetings she should be attending to support hospital in Berwick not sent out to all of us."
A spokesperson for the A Better Hospital For Berwick campaign group said: "Quite a few people have received the same letter from Mrs Trevelyan.
"It’s certainly good to know our MP is seemingly so supportive. However, the information accompanying the letter is very disheartening.
"There still seems to be no intention to review local healthcare provision. The list of planned services is the same as it was.
"Nor is it clear how all the public transport information Mrs Trevellyan enclosed is supposed to help. Combinations of travel by bus, train and on foot? Taking several hours? Each way? Patients cannot cope!
"It seems obvious that more services in Berwick would reduce the impact of all of this. That must now be thoroughly assessed, taken into account, and properly planned for.
"This is the message Mrs Trevelyan needs to be getting across to the clinical commissioning group, foundation trust and council."
Mrs Trevelyan said: "I have hundreds of emails every day and many campaigns on the go, I have to reply with campaign updates to all participants with the same letter.
"Where constituents have contacted me separately on personal matters I deal with those as individual casework.
"There are many issues ongoing with the new Berwick Infirmary and I am working very closely indeed with all the stakeholders involved to get the project to fruition.
"The question of public transport choices is a continuing challenge and I continue to discuss these with the Trust and bus operators.
"There are a number of other choices for patients needing to go to our state of the art A&E hospital for non-emergency visits which I included.
"I will continue to push for a modern community hospital for our most Northern English town, and am hoping to get the Secretary of State up to visit as I am also campaigning at a national level for changes to funding so that rural and sparsely populated areas get a fairer share of resources."
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Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust in December said "good progress" was being made towards the construction of the new standalone hospital.
Following public outcry, plans to combine the hospital with a leisure centre site were shelved, and health bosses now say they've made "significant steps" in identifying a new site in the town.
Northumbria chief executive Jim Mackey also pledged to make more appointments available within Berwick, as well as to cancel plans to reduce the number of beds available in Berwick from 20 to 16.
