GP URGES RETHINK OVER HOSPITALS

Clair Hall was packed with 400 objectors to the Fit for the Future proposals and at least 200 more were shut outside at a consultation meeting where fury was expressed at plans to cut the provision of services at the town's Princess Royal Hospital.

GP Harry Ashby, from Newick, spoke to the health authority panel on behalf of other GPs covering an area stretching as far afield as Horsham and East Grinstead.

Dr Ashby said: "We have not been consulted about these proposals and we do not think they are fundamentally safe for our patients. I am asking the panel and the primary care trust to consider an option for the Princess Royal Hospital as an acute local hospital."

The West Sussex Primary Care Trust claims that modernisation would allocate resources in a better way for patients, and has put forward three options none of which has the Princess Royal as the major general hospital. One suggests reducing it to the status of a community hospital.

"There is not a single GP in this area who thinks options A, B or C are appropriate," Dr Ashby told the meeting

This was greeted by a standing ovation from the audience.

Mid Sussex MP Nicholas Soames said the people of the area would fight the plans with everything they had. Others at the meeting complained their views were not being considered.

West Sussex county councillor Pete Bradbury said: "There's more chance of Eddie the Eagle winning gold at the next Winter Olympics than of you listening to us here tonight."