We've organised two campaign rallies – one at noon in the Forum area of Horsham town centre – right near TK Maxx – and the other at 2.30pm in Crawley's Queen's Square.

Why? Well, the answer's simple. There's just no end to people's concerns about the staggering lack of care at Redhill's East Surrey Hospital.

The hospital is struggling and failing to cope with the demand.
Local people – the people of Horsham and Crawley – are fed up with the lack of basic care when they get there.

It's not the fault of the dedicated and hard-working staff – they are literally running to keep up with demand and are unable to offer the care that they'd like to.

East Surrey Hospital is in chaos. I know everyone's doing their best to sort it out. But even if they succeed – and they're not at the moment - it's totally inaccessible from our area. The only sensible answer is a new hospital.

It's not a new idea. In 2002 a Labour Government report by Sir Peter Bagnall recommended that there should be a new hospital for the Horsham and Crawley area.

The Government refused to accept the report's conclusions and ignored the needs of local people.

Since 2002 the situation has got infinitely more serious. Today more than half of East Surrey's patients come from West Sussex.

And the Government has decreed that West Sussex is to have tens of thousands of new homes forced upon it before 2020.

The case for a new hospital for our area grows stronger every day.

Our anger and frustration increased recently when the chief executive of the West Sussex Primary Care Trust (PCT) wrote to me to confirm that a newly commissioned review of health care provision in our part of the county – a review that we welcomed – would specifically exclude consideration of a new hospital.

Doesn't that make a mockery of the whole process before it's even begun?

Isn't that an insult to local people who have been campaigning for a new hospital for years?

My campaign co-chairman, Henry Smith, and I were so incensed that we decided to arrange these rallies.

It's the perfect opportunity to demonstrate to the Government that a new hospital is something that the people of Horsham and Crawley desperately need and desperately deserve.

The campaign is now supported by two of the three main political parties, by the West Sussex County Times, by Horsham District Council, by Crawley Borough Council, by West Sussex County Council and most importantly of all, thousands of local people.

Local residents have signed up to the campaign (via www.c4pph.org) in their thousands and the rallies are an opportunity for people to come out and show just how much they want a new hospital.

This is people power! Protests in Haywards Heath and the surrounding areas may well have saved some form of A&E service at the Princess Royal Hospital and so let's do the same here – let's prove to the PCT that the people of Horsham and Crawley need a new acute hospital – we need local maternity services, we need an A&E service but most importantly we need them to be accessible and efficient.

Postcards will be available on the day of the rallies for people to sign and send off.

The same coupon is also available on the campaign website, on this website (click here) and in the current County Times issue on page 9.

All completed postcards will be presented to the PCT – so they won't be able to ignore the strength of feeling in this part of West Sussex any longer!

Please turn out in the Forum on Saturday, and later in Crawley, if you can.

Let's show the Government that we mean business!