LET'S SEE SOME REAL CHANGE, MR BROWN

SENT BY THE WEST SUSSEX GAZETTE- on behalf of the people of West Sussex

DEAR PRIME MINISTER,

Please accept our congratulations on assuming office. We wish you well.

We realise there are many tasks marked urgent waiting in your inbox. Th0ose marked NHS are as urgent as any and, in West Sussex there is an emergency looming which could literally cost lives.

The PCT proposes that the largest town in West Sussex, Worthing, could lose its A&E deoartment and that tens of thousands of patients that use it each year should instead travel about 16 miles to the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton. That hospitgal is already overstretched and has had to turn emergencies away from time to time.

As an alternative, Worthing patients might have to travel more than 20 miles west along the notoriously busy, and often gridlocked A27 to St Richard's Hospital in Chichester, should tghat hospital retain its A&E.

People in Haywards Heath towards the north of the county, are almost certain to lose A&E and maternity services from the Princess Royal Hospital in the town, and face having to travel either to Worthing or Chichester, trips of almost 26 miles of 46 miles respectively, or to the Royal Sussex County in Brighton- a distance of just over 19 miles. The hospital, the newest in the county, also faces being downgraded to a community hospital.

For full letter and coverage of campaigns to save West Sussex hospital services, see West Sussex Gazette July 4