Campaigners fighting to keep hospital maternity services have made a significant step forward.

Health bosses have agreed to scrutinise proposals drawn up by protesters which call for full consultant-led maternity facilities to be kept at two East Sussex hospitals.

East Sussex Downs and Weald and Hastings and Rother Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) are in the middle of a public consultation which could lead to maternity services being downgraded at either Eastbourne District General Hospital or the Conquest Hospital in St Leonards.

The options put forward by the PCTs are to have full maternity services at one hospital and midwife led ones at the other or have full maternity services at one hospital and none at the other.

But protesters from the Save the DGH and Hands Off the Conquest campaigns drew up an alternative plan, called Option 5, which they said should form part of the consultation.

Option 5 says that full consultant-led maternity services should be kept at both the Eastbourne DGH and the Conquest in St Leonards.

Now the PCTs have established a panel of healthcare experts to scrutinise the campaigner's proposals in depth.

PCTs chief executive Nick Yeo said: "The consultation presents four options which will allow us to continue to deliver the best and safest care for local women and their babies.

"Developed during several months of engagement with health experts, including local consultant obstetricians and gynaecologists and subjected to considerable analysis, we can be confident that all these options are deliverable.

"On the other hand, the campaign groups' proposals have not been subjected to this level of scrutiny.

"Since one of the key aims of the consultation is to identify any alternative proposals that are favoured by our communities, it is important we have a process to identify which proposals - or elements of them - should be considered by our boards in making their final decisions."

Meanwhile the Government described the Conservatives' claim that nearly half of accident and emergency departments would be axed as "deeply irresponsible" and "scaremongering".

The Conservatives warned that 92 of England's 204 A&E departments would go if guidance attributed to the Department of Health was imposed nationally.