Make your views known

Cllr John Garvicon, said he had accepted change was inevitable but wanted to ensure the best possible outcome rather than end up with something unsuitable.

We don't want a situation where we realise something else better could have been done if only we had thought about it,' he said.

Currently the plan is to put Eastbourne and Hastings hospitals into the category of Local General Hospitals, with two levels of acute care above them, Critical Care Hospitals and Major General Hospitals.

Cllr Garvicon was particularly concerned that it looked as if both Eastbourne and Hastings hospitals would be left without consultant led obstetrics departments, without paediatric beds and without local provision for treatment of conditions like cancer.

Those were areas where improvements could be made if people pressurised the health authorities.

'Five thousand people shouting Save our Hospitals and marching along the sea front isn't going to help now,' said Cllr Garvicon.

He said campaigners in Eastbourne and Hastings needed to work together to ensure that the two hospitals between them retained some of the services which looked set to be taken away.

He said at least one of the hospitals should retain consultant led obstetrics while the other moved to a midwifery led service currently suggested for both, one of the hospitals should have paediatric beds and it should be possible to receive treatment for illnesses like cancer on both sites.

He urged people to contact Nick Yeo, chief executive of East Sussex Downs and Weald Primary Care Trust and Hastings and Rother Primary Care Trust; Dr David Scott, medical director of East Sussex Hospitals Trust and John Barnes, chairman of the PCTs.