Inevitably things give the appearance of having gone quiet on the "home front" in this interim period and it might be useful if we were to update your readers with the likely next steps.

It is now clear that the fantastic campaigns run by KWASH and our sister organisations fighting for services at St Richards and the Princess Royal, which articulated the overwhelming opposition and concerns of local people, succeeded in forcing the PCT to think again.

Subsequently the original three narrow options for those hospitals have been shelved and Professor Sir Graeme Catto, the expert brought into to advise the PCT has broadened these options to include keeping A&E services on all three sites.

Click here to see a video interview with Professor Sir Graeme Catto.

It now looks likely that this will be confirmed shortly.

The devil remains in the details however.

We await further reassurances about the exact level of emergency clinical cover at these A&E departments particularly as regards emergency surgery.

A debate is still continuing over the likely configuration of maternity services and to what level these may be centralised and the likely demand for midwife led units more widely spread.

We have said all along a key consideration here is the existing pressures on the Royal Sussex County Hospital as the nearest alternative.

Management there have been very positive in supporting the case for Worthing's excellent maternity unit.

A lot has been going on behind the scenes over the past four months.

Worthing's consultants have been involved in many meetings with their clinical colleagues and with the PCT to make the case for any changes to be acceptable and right at Worthing.

We have liaised with them closely and will continue to do so. Last week all eight West Sussex MPs met the PCT to discuss progress and were advised of the following timetable.

Earlier in the week several MPs gave evidence to the county council's overview and scrutiny committee.

This followed the evidence we gave in the autumn, in front of the PCT and in time to influence recent events.

The first announcement will come at the PCT board meeting on May 7, when a decision will be made on the model of care of health services in West Sussex and the configuration of hospitals.

The following month on June 4 the PCT board will meet to decide on the actual physical sites at which those services will be based.

At the PCT board meeting on July 10 they will take into account the views of the joint health overview and scrutiny committee and confirm or modify their decisions accordingly.

Thereafter it will be up to the JHOSC to decide if they want to refer the PCT proposals to the Department of Health and the judicial reviews and other possible challenges could then go ahead.

The actual proposals are likely to be known a week before the PCT meetings as they publish the papers in advance and they are available to the public, though of course subject to the actual decisions being approved at the board meetings themselves.

It is likely therefore to be a further seven weeks or so before we have a clearer idea of what is going to happen.

The battle is far from over and we must all continue to be vigilant and support the KWASH cause for which so many worked so hard and so long.

Our determination to make sure that our constituents do not see our popular local hospitals downgraded is undiminished and we will continue to work closely with the consultants, hospital managers, our fellow campaigners and the PCT.

We all pulled together in the heights of the public campaign last year.

Now the work is still intense though less noisy.

In the meantime keep your Nurse Sunshine posters up and we still have a supply of fresh ones if yours is looking a little battle scarred!

Thank you for all your continued support for KWASH and we will make sure you are updated just as soon as we have further news.

Tim Loughton MP

Peter Bottomley MP

Major Tom Wye MBE (Chairman KWASH)

Click here for more hospital campaign stories.