A former nurse has criticised the NHS review that has put St Helier Hospital's accident and emergency department at risk of closure - after taking part in its scoring review.

Doris Richards, from Carshalton, is the vice chair of Sutton Link - a network which engages with the community to improve health and social care.

On Wednesday, February 13, Mrs Richards and 20 other representatives including clinicians and members of the new Clinical Commissioning Groups - that will run health services in Sutton when NHS London is disbanded at the end of March - were asked to review the scores a panel of eight experts had given three days previously as part of the Better Services Better Value review.

Last week sources revealed the expert panel has concluded St Helier and Epsom Hospitals were most suitable to lose their A&E and maternity services.

The review panel had the ability to hold a vote to change some of their proposed scores.

Mrs Richards, who was representing the views of Sutton Link, brought to the review panel the results of a survey carried out by 445 Sutton Link members.

The results showed 91 per cent felt that St Helier should retain its accident and emergency and maternity department.

Mrs Richards, who used to work as a nurse, said: "They should have had a plan for how they are going to deliver services in the community and deliver it effectively to people.

"We understand they want to have the best services and quality of services for residents in SW London. But it was what they were basing it all on that began to be a worry.

"There are five hospitals involved and none of them are meeting the London Health Programmes standards.

"Our question would be - why are they not working now to increase the standard of our hospitals?

"A lot of the standards could be achieved without reconfiguration. Why aren’t they trying to meet them now - that’s surely possible?"

She has also raised concerns about the ability of services in the local community to cope with closure of frontline services at St Helier Hospital given the recent problems at the Jubilee Health Centre in Wallington.

The Sutton Link survey has been acknowledged by BSBV.