Beds are to close at a community hospital as part of an efficiency drive.

Staff at Uckfield Hospital have been told that 14 beds are to be moved to hospitals in Crowborough and Lewes from October 1.

The move is part of a six month pilot project being run by Sussex Downs and Weald Primary Care Trust, which run the hospital.

A spokeswoman for the trust said the plans were an experiment in improving "efficiency and effectiveness".

She said: "It is being done on a temporary basis. We are still in discussions with staff over the full extent of the plans."

Uckfield Hospital currently offers 25 in-patient beds. The hospital, in Framfield Road, has an operating theatre, minor injuries clinic and a GP surgery.

East Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust undertakes some day surgery and outpatients appointments at the surgery.

The decision to move beds to Crowborough War Memorial Hospital and Lewes Victoria Hospital is the latest in a string of shake-ups planned for hospitals across Sussex.

A consultation run by East Sussex Downs and Weald Primary Care Trust (PCT) and Hastings and Rother PCT explored proposals to shut the consultant-led maternity services at either Eastbourne District General Hospital or Conquest Hospital in St Leonards.

Eastbourne MP Nigel Waterson has described the consultation process as "flawed", saying an option put forward by campaigners to keep both services running had been treated with disdain by NHS authorities.

Last month members of Hastings Borough Council were accused of betraying people living in the Eastbourne area after voting to strip Eastbourne of its maternity unit to save the one at the Conquest Hospital.

Eastbourne Borough Council later voted in favour of maintaining both units.

In West Sussex the joint health overview and scrutiny committee, which oversees the plans of West Sussex Primary Care Trust (PCT) and Brighton and Hove City PCT, has called on health minister Alan Johnson to suspend consultation on the future of hospital services.

Committee members said they were concerned about the lack of detail available in the plans.

The options on offer would include either Worthing Hospital or St Richard's Hospital in Chichester losing vital services such as accident and emergency, intensive care and consultant-led maternity.

The Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath would lose these services under all the proposals and also faces being downgraded into a community hospital.

Thousands more patients would have to travel to already overstretched hospitals such as the Royal Sussex in Brighton.