Hundreds of people in Halifax launched a campaign at the weekend to save two A&E units at two general hospitals threatened with closure.

Over 250 people gathered at a meeting where speakers called for widespread action on a par with the successful campaign in Lewisham last year which saw 50,000 protesters take to the streets.

Bosses at Huddersfield and Calderdale NHS Foundation Trust have drawn up proposals for accident and emergency service provision in Huddersfield and Halifax.

Each town has a general hospital — Calderdale Royal and Huddersfield Royal — with A&E units. The proposals include the closure of one or both of the units.

Campaigners in both towns have joined forces to launch a joint battle to keep both open — and not allow trust bosses to play them off against each other.

Saturday’s meeting in a Halifax leisure centre was told that organisers of the successful Lewisham campaign were to travel to Yorkshire to assist in the new campaign.

The Lewisham campaigners took legal action resulting in a court ruling that the community’s A&E unit could not be legally shut against the people’s wishes.

As a result the Tories and their Liberal Democrat collaborators slipped through an amendment to the notorious Health and Social Care Bill.

The government has now given itself new powers to axe health services against the will of the people who use them.

Left Labour MP for Halifax Linda Riordan told Saturday’s meeting: “We are fighting for our NHS — and it is our NHS.”

Halifax community campaigner Gary Scott, who organised a 400-strong protest in the town two weeks ago, said: “We are told it is not about cuts. But they are cutting jobs, cutting beds, cutting services. If it’s not about cuts, that’s an awful lot of cuts.”

Unison’s regional head of health Tony Pearson said Calderdale Royal treated 23,000 A&E patients every year, and Huddersfield treated 22,000 — but that health trust bosses had been unable to give him the figures.

He had to get them from the ambulance service.

“This is cuts-driven,” he said.