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Health bosses have been accused of deploying ‘Orwellian’-tactics by misleading patients in a £400,000 publicity campaign which claims that A&E units are ‘changing’ when in fact they are closing.

Public relations specialist, M&C Saatchi, has been hired by NHS bosses in North West London to provide advice and support for the campaign which starts this week and runs over the school summer holidays giving residents just six weeks’ notice of A&E closures at Hammersmith Hospital and Central Middlesex on September 10. They will be replaced with a GP-led Urgent Care Centre treating minor injuries.

M&C Saatchi sent NHS bosses research to show that patients found the 'change' message more 'reassuring than closure'.

However, when questioned at last Tuesday’s Hammersmith & Fulham (H&F) Council Health and Social Care Policy and Accountability Committee (PAC) health officials from the CCG, including chair Dr Tim Spicer and vice-chair Dr Susan McGoldrick, told the committee that clinicians would have preferred to have used the word ‘closure’ but took advice from M&C Saatchi whom they described as their ‘professionals in public relations’.

H&F Council Leader, Cllr Stephen Cowan, said; "Using the word 'change' rather than ‘closed’ appeared to be deliberately designed to distract the public from being upset or concerned about the closure of the A&Es rather than informing them of what was happening and what was in the best interests for them and their loved ones should they ever need accident or emergency health care services."