A&Es And Hospitals Face Closure Amid NHS Funding Crisis

The NHS is drawing up plans to close services including A&E departments and district hospitals.

Experts have warned there could be a "glut" of services shut down as providers face a £23bn national funding deficit.

Campaign group 38 Degrees has uncovered 44 Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs) being drawn up across England.

The disclosure comes after Stafford County Hospital suspended its A&E service for children on Thursday after senior staff said it was not clinically safe.

38 Degrees said the analysis, carried out by health policy experts Incisive Health, "reveals far-reaching plans to close services, which appear to have had little input from patients and the public".

In the Black Country, it said there are plans to shut the A&E department at the yet-to-open Midland Metropolitan Hospital and to close one of two district general hospitals as part of a planned merger.

In Leicestershire and Rutland, there are plans to reduce the number of hospitals in the area from three to two.

Meanwhile, in Suffolk and North East Essex there are plans to "reconfigure" acute services within Colchester Hospital University Trust and to close GP practices.

In Dorset, hospital beds are at risk, while there are also proposals to close the equivalent of five wards in the Leeds Teaching Hospital's Trust.

Laura Townshend, director at 38 Degrees, said the findings show the health service is "dangerously under-funded".

She said: "These proposed cuts aren't the fault of local NHS leaders. The health service is struggling to cope with growing black holes in NHS funding."

"The NHS belongs to all of us - so local people should get a say in any changes to their local services," she added.

The warning comes as Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents frontline NHS leaders, said a "glut" of services could close.

Mr Hopson called on Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt and NHS England boss Simon Stevens to admit there is a disparity between what the NHS is being asked to achieve and the money available.

Keith Strangwood, chairman of the campaign to save Horton Hospital in Banbury, Oxfordshire, told Sky News the plans were "madness".

He said: "They say it's not about money, but the sustainability project is about money.

"Why don't they just ask the people would you put another £10 in a month and we can keep the service we need and not the service we can currently afford?"

Shadow health secretary Diane Abbott told Sky News the savings required could be made elsewhere.

She said: "Last year the NHS spent £3.6bn on agency staff, that's completely unnecessary. That spending has ballooned out of proportion in recent years.

"We're also spending nearly £2bn every year on the costs of Private Finance Initiatives.

"We believe there are savings to be made which will make these cuts unnecessary."

A spokesperson for NHS England said that while the NHS was looking for "major efficiencies", proposals were at a "draft stage"

They added: "We expect all local leaders to be talking to the public and stakeholders regularly - it is vital that people are able to shape the future of their local services.

"No changes to the services people currently receive will be made without local engagement and, where required, consultation."

The Department of Health said it had protected the NHS "by giving it an extra £10bn to fund its own plan to transform services".

A spokesman said: "Changes to local services will only go forward where they are designed by doctors and in the clear interests of local patients."