Angry demonstrators lobbied committee members as they arrived for a meeting to discuss healthcare in SW London.

The protesters were outside Fairfield Halls in Croydon on Thursday, July 26 to demand a U-turn on a recommendation to close the hospital’s Accident and Emergency, maternity and children’s wards and make it a centre for planned surgery instead.

Members of the Joint Boards of South West London Primary Care Trusts received an update from the Better Services Better Value team which in May suggested that it should be St Helier and not Croydon or Kingston hospitals that lost the vital services.

Sutton Council leader, Ruth Dombey, said: “The demonstration showed the strength of feeling against this scheme which they are trying to rush through without proper costing or consideration.”

Inside she told delegates: “This isn’t just about St Helier. Patients from Ham to New Addington would be expected to come to St Helier for planned surgery. It simply won’t happen; you are talking about the end of St Helier Hospital.”

She pleaded for the hospital’s future, and told members of the PCTs – which are due to be disbanded on April 1 next year: “St Helier Trust is working on the Futures Options project with local clinicians, GPs and the council.

“Leave us to come up with a viable plan that we will implement. Not you – you won’t be here after April.”

The meeting followed a SW London Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting on Tuesday July 24 where councillors criticised BSBV for not providing a business plan to justify a loss of services at St Helier.

They also criticised them for not explaining how they reached their estimates of the cost of the various options.

The proposals were expected to go out to consultation in the next couple of weeks, but the financial assessment has taken longer than anticipated.

It is expected that a decision on which option will go to public consultation will be taken by the Joint Boards on September, 13.

Although St Helier is currently the preferred option, it is possible that the alternative of making Croydon Hospital the planned surgery centre instead of St Helier could also be put out for consultation.