Paramedics fear moving some services to Redhill will stretch already busy crews and affect response times.

Serious cases will go to East Surrey Hospital so doctors can perform more operations and Crawley's A&E will be reclassified as a minor injuries unit.

Hospital managers say patient care will not be affected by the move.

Perform operations

The decision to change the accident and emergency unit at Crawley Hospital came after a review of all services run by the Surrey and Sussex NHS Trust carried out in 1999.

It was argued that doctors needed to perform a certain number of operations to keep their skills up to standard.

As a result it was decided to move the more serious cases from Crawley to the East Surrey Hospital nine miles away.

The trust has said only about a quarter of the 100 cases seen daily at Crawley Hospital will be affected by the move, due to come into force at the end of the summer.

But, Unison officials representing Sussex Ambulance crews say the changes will mean ambulances will be forced to travel further, affecting response times and availability.