Kingston Hospital would lose a major service in 16 out of 18 proposals contained in a final draft of a review of healthcare across south-west London.

The Surrey Comet has seen extracts of the private and confidential South West London Strategic Plan dated December 18, 2009, which has been leaked to Edward Davey, Kingston and Surbiton’s Liberal Democrat MP.

He said: "We have always said that they are reviewing the future of acute hospital services in south-west London and in that review they were considering the future of Kingston Hospital services.

"This table and the context around it completely confirms our allegation which came straight from our briefing by four chief executives and one senior clinician.

"People who said we are scaremongering are clearly wrong."

Healthcare for South West London said no decisions had been made and the review was still at an early stage.

Services at St Helier, Croydon's Mayday, St George's in Tooting and Kingston Hospital are all being examined.

The leaked report makes public more detail about the scale of changes that are being considered, with changes in paedatric inpatient wards and routine operations also under the microscope.

Until today, NHS chiefs have been insistent that no decisions have been made about specific sites by the 100 clinicians working on the review.

But the report designates St George’s as the major acute hospital, making it more likely one of the other three would see services downgraded as they shift either to a larger, specialist hospital like St George’s, or into the community in polyclinics or walk-in centres.

If Kingston Hospital did stop performing routine operations, patients could be sent to a new surgery centre similar to the South West London Elective Orthopaedic Centre (SWLEOC) which was opened in 2004 at Epsom Hospital.

Major stroke and trauma units have already been moved to St George’s from Kingston, Mayday and St Helier last summer, replaced with local units offering general care and rehabilitation.

A Case for Change document designed to persuade patients about the general benefits of changes within the NHS has been completed and is waiting for approval before being made public later this month.

But clinicians from each of the five working groups looking into everything from end of life care to A+Es will be shown the final draft of strategic plan and asked to consider it further before the contents are made public.