HANDS off our accident and emergency services.

That was the message from more than 800 protesters who filled Bishop Auckland’s Market Square today.

Banner-waving protesters cheered as speaker after speaker denounced proposals to strip Bishop Auckland General Hospital of its acute medical services and accident and emergency department.

The scale of the opposition to plans to concentrate acute medical services at Darlington Memorial Hospital and the University Hospital of North Durham - at the expense of Bishop Auckland - were a direct challenge to proposals which are currently the subject of public consultation.

Speakers also denounced the consultation as a sham and urged County Durham Primary Care Trust and County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust to go back to the drawing board and increase services at the Wear Valley hospital rather than take them away.

Officials were warned that the proposal to replace Bishop Auckland‘s A & E department with an urgent care centre will mean many patients having to travel much further to have emergency treatment, will put lives in jeopardy, particularly people from remote rural areas such as Upper Weardale.

Clive Auld, spokesman for the town’s Save Our Hospital campaign, which organised the event, told the sea of faces: “Thank you very much for coming to show your disapproval. It is tremendous.”

Anyone could see from the turn-out that “people from Bishop Auckland are not going to allow the trust to decimate what we have here, because that is exactly what is happening now,” he added.

Mr Auld criticised moves which he said meant that a privately built hospital which would cost the taxpayer £250m over 30 years would end up as a virtual cottage hospital.

“This must not happen. We must stop this from going ahead,” he said.

Helen Goodman, MP for Bishop Auckland, said it was “fantastic” to see so many people showing they were opposed to the controversial plans.

“We are here to defend a very important NHS principle - everybody should have equal access to healthcare,” she said.

Mrs Goodman accused the trust officials of being “arrogant” in telling her that the majority of people in the county were in favour of the proposals when 13,000 people had signed a petition opposing the changes.

“This is like something from the Soviet Union, 50 years ago,” she added.

The hospital trust insists that the changes are necessary to ensure that high quality and safe services are offered to County Durham residents.

It says plans to use Bishop Auckland hospital as a centre for planned surgery and for rehabilitation - with an option to base a new cataract surgery centre there - will increase the use of the £67m hospital which opened six years ago.

The ultimate decision whether the proposals go ahead will be made by County Durham Primary Care Trust, which is now known as NHS County Durham.