PATIENTS and hospital staff from Worcestershire joined campaigners from across the Midlands to march against NHS cuts on Saturday.

Hundreds of protestors marched from City Hospital, Birmingham, to Centenary Square, urging the Government to stop the job and service cuts and scrap the current NHS debt, estimated to be at least £500m.

In Worcestershire, 720 redundancies have been announced and proposals are in place to centralise maternity services and paediatric inpatients at Worcestershire Royal Hospital - meaning they would be lost from the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch.

In Redditch and surrounding areas, the campaigners want services such as maternity, paediatrics and gynaecology to stay at the Alex.

Neal Stote, from the Save Alex Campaign, said: Hundreds of people turned out to have their voices heard, protest groups are fighting similar cuts across country and there are now calls for the trade union movement to call for a national demonstration against NHS cuts.

"If the cuts go ahead at the Alex it will leave the whole of Worcestershire with just one place for expectant mums to give birth, and we have been told the plans to reduce paediatric care to a 12-hour day service will have an impact on the A&E department at night."