Doctors and patients are distressed by a plan to move Royal Berkshire Hospitals stroke unit from its purpose-built ground-floor ward.
The hospital trust says it will provide improvements for elderly patients with hip fractures.
The plan is to move the service from the Caversham ward, opened by the Queen in February 2006, to Woodley ward on an upper floor.
It would mean reducing the number of stroke beds from 16 to 12, moving patients three storeys up and several corridors away from where they are treated, far from the hydrotherapy pool and therapy garden.
In a letter to hospitals chief executive Jean OCallaghan, the staff doctors say of the stroke unit: Absence of social spaces will lead to patients remaining in their beds, will lengthen their hospital admission, waiting lists will lengthen for the service reducing efficiencies of the acute bed locations like ICU [intensive care unit] trauma and acute medical wards.
The four doctors whom getreading has been asked not to name say: The move to Woodley ward does mean the Royal Berkshire Hospital will no longer meet the neuro-rehabilitation needs of the community, or the clinical needs of the neurologically impaired patients.
Her Majesty the Queen watches a stroke patient using robotic therapy equipment at Royal Berkshire Hospital in 2006
Caversham ward is next to the physiotherapy gym and occupational therapy workshops and provides private treatment areas for speech therapy and psychology.
The floor-to-ceiling windows provide sunlight and fresh air, side rooms are available for agitated patients and a large conservatory, secure courtyard garden, horticultural therapy garden and hydrotherapy pool are all close by.
The unit was designed to provide a calm, enriched environment for optimal neurological recovery.
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Doctors and patients distressed by plan to move Royal Berkshire Hospital stroke unit