THE boss of an under-fire hospitals trust in the region has defended his record and rejected claims that services are being cut.

The comments by John Saxby, chief executive of County Durham and Darlington Acute Hospitals Foundation Trust, came on the eve of the first major demonstration by health workers against NHS cuts to be held in the region for years.

Today, hundreds of health trade unionists are due to demonstrate in the centre of Darlington and Sunderland.

They will be protesting against plans to reduce health jobs across the NHS and Government reforms.

But Mr Saxby has been upset by leaflets accusing the trust of planning to close gynaecology beds at weekend, shut down the in-house laundry and reduce services to patients.

He said doctors had advised him that gynaecology beds were so rarely used on Saturdays and Sundays that it would be more efficient to close ward 62, which has 23 beds, at weekends and admit any emergency patients to another ward where they would be cared for by gynaecology nurses.

As for the laundry, Mr Saxby said a decision whether to retain the service in-house or transfer the work to an outside company was likely to be made in May.

"We are doing a very careful economic analysis of the service," he said.

"The great majority of other trusts out-source this service and it if turns out that it saves us £100,000 a year, then it would almost be criminal to continue to spend NHS money in this way."

Mr Saxby said he could not deny that wards had closed at Darlington and Bishop Auckland recently, but he insisted that this was in line with a shrinking demand for beds.

"We have to make hospital services as efficient as we can to protect services and staff jobs," he said.

"As for cuts to services, 90 per cent of our outpatients are seen within six weeks and 88 per cent of our inpatients are seen in less than 13 weeks. We haven't cut the service, we have improved it."

Mr Saxby dismissed rumours that Bishop Auckland General Hospital would close and be replaced by flats or even a prison as "stupid".

He revealed that Bishop Auckland will be the site for a county-wide bowel screening service, which is due to be in place by early next year.