Hundreds of local people fighting to save crucial Stafford Hospital services facing the axe will confront care commissioners tonight over their collaboration in the closure of child and maternity care.

Protesters spent their 60th night under canvas yesterday in a 40-tent encampment in the grounds of the cuts-threatened site (pictured).

Today their numbers will swell by hundreds more as they unfurl a massive banner sending a defiant message to Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) members who hold the purse strings to the town’s healthcare.

Support Stafford Hospital’s Julian Porter told the Star that it may not be a radical town but “local people have had enough.”

The closures will mean that parents with sick children will face a 20-mile journey to debt-laden private finance initiative North Staffordshire Hospital in Stoke-on-Trent or Royal Wolverhampton.

The plans came out of a review into the local Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation which the authorities said had revealed safety concerns.

But Mr Porter retorted: “Is it safe to drive a kid 30 miles for care?”

He accused NHS bosses of closing Stafford’s services simply to shore up cash-strapped North Staffordshire’s finances, which are buckling under the strain of the PFI deal and Tory demands for £20 billion in cuts.

Campaigners say that the CCG has millions at its disposal that could be used to keep local maternity and child services catering for tens of thousands of people open. 

The year-long campaign is still in the courts with locals seeking an injunction to prevent the closures slated for January and March.

But Mr Porter warned that health bosses had begun cutting critical staff and “ripping the heart out now with no regard to capacity or safety.”

North Staffordshire already faces an emergency beds crisis and the Stafford protesters fear that the situation is only going to get worse.

“Our CCG is letting this happen,” said Mr Porter.

Support Stafford Hospital opened an electoral front in the campaign last week with leading protester Karen Howell declaring that she will stand as a candidate for the National Health Action Party.

“If we can keep this going until May, maybe we’ll save some of the services,” said Mr Porter.