Campaigners are worried plans to redevelop a century-old hospital could leave it with fewer beds.

Barts Health Trust is planning to give Whipps Cross Hospital a makeover as part of a multi-million pound series of improvement works.

According to one of the trust’s planning documents, Whipps Cross currently houses 573 beds across its departments.

The new plans could see that figure slashed by 67 to 506 in a bid to create more space between individual beds.

But the total number of hospital beds at present and in the future appears to change across the different planning documents the trust has released.

One shows the total number of beds currently at Whipps Cross to be as high as 589.

In response to the concerns and the confusion over figures, tomorrow evening campaign group Waltham Forest Save Our NHS (WFSONHS) is holding a public meeting to discuss the proposals and draw attention to the bed issue.

A spokesman for the group said: “A new Whipps Cross Hospital would be fantastic and efforts by local bodies to get this off the ground is to be supported.

“However, current plans actually propose fewer beds than there are at present despite the local population projected to increase by the equivalent of a city size of Cardiff.

“There are already insufficient beds in Whipps Cross Hospital.”

The group is also concerned about recent cuts to the Government’s Department of Health and Social Care budget, which it believes will negatively impact local NHS services even further.

The spokesman added: “A new Whipps Cross Hospital is desperately needed and is a once in a century opportunity. It must be a hospital that the community needs.

“The fight for a decent Whipps Cross hospital is a piece in the jigsaw of the national fight to save the NHS from a government bent on neglecting it to death.”

Whipps Cross houses one of the busiest accident and emergency departments in the UK and the group is concerned that future pressures could push that service to breaking point.

However, a spokesman for Barts Health Trust said it will be involving the public as much as possible when drawing up the final plans.

Alastair Finney, Whipps Cross’ redevelopment director, said: “Many of our hospital’s buildings pre-date the NHS itself and are in real need of redevelopment.

“We want to create a thriving health and care campus providing the very best care for local people alongside a wide range of facilities to keep them well.

“We don’t have any approved plans yet and still need to secure funding, so over the next few months we will be undertaking detailed work with our staff, with local people and with Government to determine the exact size and scale of a future hospital at Whipps Cross and the supporting services around it.

“We remain committed to maintaining A&E and maternity services and agree it is crucial that any future hospital meets the needs of local people.

“To get this right we really need local people’s views to help us develop an exciting, deliverable and affordable plan, so we are currently putting together a range of mechanisms to engage the community and we look forward to hearing from people at this meeting.”

WFSONHS’s meeting will start at 7.30pm on Wednesday, February 27 at the Epicentre, 41 West Street Leytonstone E11 4LJ.

Speakers at the event will include MP for Leyton and Wanstead John Cryer, Alwen Williams, CEO of Barts Health Trust, Aislinn Macklin, a cancer doctor and a local health worker.