THE people of Redditch and surrounding area have said a resounding NO to proposals to downgrade the Alexandra Hospital.

More than 14,000 outraged readers have already put their names to the Redditch Advertiser petition calling on health chiefs to rethink the plans for financial savings.

And the petition forms continue to flood in.

Redditch MP and Government minister Jacqui Smith will take the hefty petition to health chiefs in Worcester this month as just one expression of the strength of protest.

Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs the Alex, wants to save up to £27 million and has proposed centralising inpatient obstetric, gynaecology and paediatric departments and transferring A&E, emergency surgical services, cancer surgery and critical care to the Worcestershire Royal Hospital.

Trust chiefs say no final decision has been made yet but it is obvious from the flood of letters to the Advertiser - far too many to publish them all - that the proposals have caused widespread distress and fear.

One reader was so upset that, despite her heart problems, she took the trouble to visit all her neighbours to ask them to sign our petition.

Meanwhile, a political row has broken out between Redditch and Bromsgrove MPs over the issue.

In a letter sent on Monday, Conservative Julie Kirkbride accused Ms Smith of "being silent until now" over "potentially catastrophic" threats posed to services at the Alex.

Miss Kirkbride wrote: "You are now on record as pledging to fight these cuts but as Redditch MP and former health minister, you surely must have been aware of the serious situation."

She added that since 2002, residents under a Labour Government had paid higher National Insurance contributions "to fund better hospital services".

But she said: "Worcestershire residents still receive less than the national and shire county averages for Government healthcare.

''Isn't it a fact that if we received a fairer share, we wouldn't be facing these cuts?"

Ms Kirkbride went on to blame the Government for leaving the Alex to "bear the swinging cuts" incurred by its fixed price contracts with hospitals in Kidderminster and Worcester.

In a reply the same day, Ms Smith slammed Miss Kirkbride's comments as "party political diatribe", adding she was disappointed there was no mention of trying to preserve health services.

Ms Smith said: "I would have hoped you'd concentrate your fire on the trust's ill thought-out proposals rather than start a sterile political debate that isn't going to change anything."

She added: "We can win this battle if we concentrate on getting the trust to make savings instead of starting a political fight that will achieve nothing."

Miss Kirkbride has called a public meeting to give residents the chance to cross-examine trust chief executive John Rostill and chairman Michael O'Riordan at Bromsgrove's Artrix Theatre, School Road, on Saturday at 10am.

A protest will take place beforehand outside the centre at 9.30am.

Ms Smith has called a public meeting at Redditch Town Hall on November 10 at 7pm.