CAMPAIGNERS need to forget trying to save hospitals in their own towns and work together to ensure there is at least one hospital in west Wiltshire.

So says the chairman of the Friends of Trowbridge Hospital, town and district councillor Jeff Osborn.

Cllr Osborn said: "There is no way we are going to get five hospitals in west Wiltshire.

"We have got very little time to get our act together and what I am saying is that it is very important for the five towns to take a west Wiltshire view.

"It is possible we won't get a hospital in west Wiltshire at all and we cannot let that happen."

Cllr Osborn is hoping to arrange a meeting between the friends in each of the four other west Wiltshire towns, all of whom have been fighting the closures.

He believes it is time to press for a state-of-the-art New Generation Hospital to be built in the district, with Semington as one possible location.

"It would be a disaster if we did not have this in west Wiltshire. Semington is one possible idea but it could be somewhere else," he said.

"It must include maternity services and it must include beds, particularly for older people with mental health problems."

Health campaigners in other west Wiltshire towns said they would like to meet to discuss the way forward, although they have not given up hopes of saving hospitals in their own towns.

Richard Vine, chairman of Warminster Hospital League of Friends, said: "Obviously our primary aim must be to keep Warminster Hospital open and we haven't given up on that.

"We accept that if at the end of the day there is going to be no hospital in Warminster then yes, we want something that is convenient as possible for the people who would have used the hospital and Semington seems like a sensible place."

His Westbury counterpart Jenny Clements said: "I think at the moment everything is going to Kennet and North Wilts and anything we can get here in west Wilts has got to be better than nothing.

"We would be more than happy to meet with the other Leagues of Friends because we have to get the very best we can for the people of west Wiltshire."

John Cottle from Bradford on Avon Hospital League of Friends said: "They are going to put a treatment centre in Devizes which is absolutely ridiculous. We would prefer it to be in Trowbridge."

The new Wiltshire Primary Care Trust is due to announce its decision on the future of health services across the county on January 16.

The former West Wiltshire and Kennet & North Wiltshire PCTs carried out a public consultation costing nearly £150,000 - only to decide the new PCT would have to make the crucial decisions.

The latest figures, due to go before the PCT board at a meeting yesterday, show the Wiltshire trust is forecast to finish the year with a deficit of at least £22.6m - or more than £30m in a worst-case scenario.

Only Melksham hospital had a chance of staying open under the three options put forward by the former PCTs under the Pathways for Change review.