A council is calling for a public consultation on the shake-up of health services to be referred to the Secretary of State.

Mid Sussex District Council wants Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt to take a closer look at the way the Best Care, Best Place consultation was run.

The consultation, which was launched in November 2004 and ran until February this year, proposed a raft of short and long-term plans to change hospital and community services in the Brighton and Hove and Mid Sussex area.

The most controversial was the decision to transfer emergency surgery from the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath to the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton.

It could also lead to the maternity unit at the Princess Royal being downgraded to a midwife-led one if specialist nurses cannot be recruited to run it.

If the consultation is referred it could take months to review and put some of the plans on hold.

District councillor Christopher Snowling said: "The council is gravely concerned about the proposals on maternity provision and accident and emergency.

"The removal of emergency surgery from the Princess Royal is a clear downgrading of health provision at that hospital, as has happened at Crawley Hospital and is part of a clear pattern of downgrading.

"The council is unconvinced by assurances given to the contrary.

"A midwife-led unit at the Princess Royal, with all higher risk births being transferred elsewhere, principally to the Royal Sussex County, is wholly unacceptable."

Councillors have written to the joint health and scrutiny committee, charged with following the consultation's progress from its inception, with a list of complaints.

They say the entire scrutiny process was fundamentally flawed because not enough evidence from experts, witnesses and members of the public was brought in to challenge the proposals.

Only one councillor from Mid Sussex was on the nine-strong joint committee which passed Best Care, Best Place which the district council says led to a serious imbalance in its decision.