A hospital's casualty unit may face closure within ten years unless changes are made, its boss has warned.

A probable shortage of consultants to run accident and emergency services at the Princess Royal Hospital, Haywards Heath, would be the main practical reason for downgrading it, said chief executive of the Mid Sussex NHS Trust Roger Greene.

The public is opposing the prospect of the change at the hospital.

A discussion document on the future of the service was originally due to be released on July 27. However, it will not now be produced for several weeks.

NHS managers want to transfer patients who need surgery following accidents to the Royal Sussex County Hospital at Brighton.

Other patients would continue to be treated at Haywards Heath, including those who have had heart or asthma attacks.

The change is the managers' favourite choice of the three options being put out for discussion.

Mr Greene spoke in detail on the issue for the first time at the board meeting of the Mid Sussex NHS Trust at Haywards Heath yesterday.

He said the department was currently run by general surgeons rather than by specialists, and they were due to retire in the next five to ten years.

He said that the "most practical" reason for sending people to Brighton was a trend towards training specialists, rather than general surgeons.

And he said of his present team: "It is very unlikely we would be able to replace them by people who have general experience and skill.

"It is far more likely to be specialists."

The threat to the Princess Royal comes because national NHS experts favour putting specialists in larger centres, such as Brighton, rather than sending them to smaller hospitals like the Princess Royal.

Their argument is that they see more patients at bigger centres and can offer more expertise as a result.

Mr Greene said of the future loss of the general surgeons: "If we are not able to replace them we will find ourselves in the situation where, by default, we are not able to run accident and emergency services."

Trust chairman Christine Field has asked for any deadlines on commenting on the document, when it is eventually released, not to begin in the August holiday period, in order to allow everyone an opportunity to put their point of view.

Mrs Field said: "It is common knowledge that the world, the UK, or England, whatever, stops for August. I think we have to balance the need for speed against the disadvantage of going out in August."

The delay in publishing the discussion document is due to the imminent release of new national policy.

The review group has already agreed, as reported in The Argus, to push back dates because of the delay.

NHS managers want to make sure their schemes do not clash with the new policy before releasing the discussion papers.