A PUBLIC consultation to decide if Redbridge’s only accident and emergency ward should close has been dismissed as “about as free and fair as a rigged Afghan election”.

Ilford South MP Mike Gapes, in whose constituency the threatened King George Hospital in Ilford is located, made the comments as a 58-page consultation document was published by a quango called Health for North East London which is behind the proposals.

The plans would cut the number of accident and emergency (A&E) wards serving north east London from six to five.

Supporters believe that patients would receive better care and have shorter waiting times overall if the plans were approved, but many in Redbridge believe that it is the people in the borough who would suffer.

Former mayor Loraine Sladden has conducted a survey of Redbridge GPs which, she says, shows that 94 per cent are against the closure.

She said: “At a recent meeting we had about it, Heather O’Meara (Redbridge PCT’s chief executive), said there aren’t enough trauma patients currently using King George Hospital. I stood up and told them I had been shown a fax by a GP, sent to him by the NHS, telling them not to refer any more patients to the A&E at King George because they were overwhelmed.

“The NHS and the PCT tell us one thing but we see a different picture.”

In a recent speech to Parliament, Mr Gapes said: “This is a hidden agenda to save money, dressed up as a clinical exercise.”

Under the proposals from the NHS’s Health for North East London, emergency patients would be taken instead to either Whipps Cross Hospital in Leytonstone or Queen’s Hospital in Romford.

Ilford North MP Lee Scott said: “The arguments just don’t add up. Can Queen’s or Whipps Cross cope with what would quite possibly be hundreds of thousands of extra patients? Without extra resources, the answer is no.

“Our position is that if we win the next general election, we’ll hold a moratorium on it straight away, and put a halt to anything that’s in place.”

The consultation runs to March 8. To take part go to healthfornel.nhs.uk/consultation.