Staff at Crewkerne have said they have already been told about redeployment options and offered shifts shadowing roles at other hospitals.
Michelle Purchase, who has worked at the hospital for 16 years, said: “We can’t close these beds, we can’t lose them.
“The patients need these beds and so do the acute hospitals to offload into these community beds. This must not happen.”
Sandy, who has been an inpatient at Crewkerne for four weeks, said she had received “wonderful care” relatively close to home.
She described those caring for her as “angels in nurses uniforms”.
Elsewhere, the trust is also in the early stages of a consultation on reducing beds at the community hospitals in Frome and Bridgwater, and at West Mendip Hospital in Glastonbury.