TORY politicians have reopened the campaign to stop Queen Mary’s Hospital, Sidcup, from being stripped of its emergency services.

Although changes laid down by A Picture of Health (APOH) are already underway, the Tories have launched a petition opposing any further cuts in services.

The campaign is being led by Hornchurch MP James Brokenshire, who hopes to become MP for Old Bexley and Sidcup at the next election.

He has already called for a halt to the APOH changes, following a poor showing in a survey of hospital standards by the new combined hospitals trust, South London Healthcare Trust, which runs Queen Mary’s.

Now he has been joined by Conservative Bexley councillors who will be taking to the borough streets asking local people to sign up to the campaign.

The Tories say in the last few months Queen Mary’s A&E department has closed at night and the stroke rehabilitation ward has shut.

By May next year they claim Queen Mary’s will have been stripped of all its emergency services.

But they say plans to add new services are yet to materialise and they claim there is still no clear plan for the hospital’s future.

Mr Brokenshire expressed his fears about the trust’s plans to close planned surgery at Orpington Hospital at the end of this month and move it to the Princess Royal in Farnborough instead of to Queen Mary’s.

The trust says this is only an interim move made to reassure the Orpington staff, and the service will be transferred to Queen Mary’s by the end of next year.

But Mr Brokenshire fears the move to Sidcup may not take place.

He said: “Queen Mary’s simply cannot be allowed to wither on the vine.

“The current hospital reorganisation plans are unacceptable and should be called to a halt.”

The trust has already invited Mr Brokenshire to a meeting to discuss his concerns.

A spokesman added: "The future of hospital services in the three boroughs our trust serves, is an extremely serious subject and the APOH proposals are a serious, comprehensive and clinically-led approach to the many challenges the sites have coped with for many years.

“The service changes we are planning are all about improving patient safety and the quality of our care, and to draw back from this now would be the wrong response to a report which highlights the challenges we face in this area"

The petition will be in Blackfen on Friday afternoon (December 11)and on Saturday morning(December 12)in Sidcup.