Local campaigns to save services in Maidstone Hospital are to be co-ordinated in a new organisation called MASH (Maidstone Action for Services in Hospitals) - reports the Downs Mail.
The group is already supported by Maidstone's two MPs, cabinet members of both Kent and Maidstone councils, Maidstone Division of the British Medical Association, the two main local newspapers the Downs Mail and Kent Messenger, together with patients and relatives.
Maidstone Hospital has several mountains to climb, including better management of C-Diff infections which killed more than 90 patients and led to a damning report by the Healthcare Commission.
While the hospital's record is now improving, reports still abound of A&E patients being "stacked" in ambulances due to serious delays in emergency admissions.
December saw a significant increase in the number of people waiting over four hours from a decision to admit to admission - 941 waited more than four hours, with 4 patients waiting more than twelve hours).
The main reason was said to be a lack of beds in A&E.
The hospital also has continuing financial problems, with the trust facing a deficit of £18.7m for 2008/09 and a total savings requirement of £21.2m - amounts that could be wiped out with two days' worth of our payments into the audit-failing European Union budget, if that wasted money were diverted into hospital services.
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