Three board members who decided the fate of St Richard's Hospital failed to declare their links with Worthing.
Campaigners have called for resignations after the allegation was made at a public meeting to formally rubber stamp the decision to downgrade services at St Richard's Hospital.
The meeting heard that the wife of board member Andrew Foulkes works a
s a paediatric physiotherapist at Worthing Hospital, which is to become the county's only major general hospital.
It also heard that Dr Farhang Tahzib, who wrote an influential report for the PCT on deprivation, is the chairman of the Worthing Together Local Strategic Partnership and David King, a Worthing borough councillor, has a daughter who suffers from a long-term illness requiring treatment from one of the centralised services.
"If this is true then I am utterly appalled and I would expect these people to explain themselves or resign," said Support St Richard's campaigner Abigail Rowe.
A member of the public made the claim at the PCT's board meeting in Walberton last Thursday which formally decided to go ahead with its plans to axe emergency surgery, inpatient children's services and emergency surgery from St Richard's and centralise them to Worthing.
The PCT has already had accusations of bias towards Worthing levelled at it and the latest claim has done little to appease sceptics.
All PCT board meetings require that all conflicts of interest members or their family have be declared, but PCT chief executive John Wilderspin told the Observer that he was satisfied none of these interests needed to be declared.
"I am satisfied that people have declared their motivational interests," he said.
"At the beginning of the consultation we had allegations from Worthing that we were being biased towards Chichester, and now the decision has been made we have had allegations we are being biased towards Worthing.
"But the decision was not based on bias towards any hospital, it was based on the evidence."
This allegation follows an
Observer exclusive earlier this month when we revealed a secret deal had been struck between Worthing and Brighton to strip West Sussex of its high-dependency baby unit.
What do you think? Click here to send a letter or leave a comment below.
Click here to go back to Chichester news
Click here to go back to Bognor Regis news
Click here to go back to Midhurst and Petworth news
To tell us where in the world you are reading this story click on the link below to add yourself to our readers' map.
MAP
The full article contains 431 words and appears in OS-Chichester Observer newspaper.
