KENT health chiefs have been accused of trying to suppress public opposition to potentially contentious cuts in services that could hit levels of patient care across the county.

The claim has come from campaigners after an internal briefing document produced by the newly-created South East Coast Strategic Health Authority appeared to reveal how it is anxious to stop any groundswell of public opposition growing to disrupt its plans.

Campaigners say Kent NHS chiefs are desperate to avoid a repeat of the huge opposition there has been to health cuts in neighbouring Sussex and Surrey, where mass marches and well-organised campaigns have taken place to try to protect local services after a similar review.

According to Health Emergency, the campaign group, the health authority – the successor body to the Kent and Medway Strategic Health Authority - intends to conduct its public consultation over a wide-ranging review of services under the slogan "Creating an NHS Fit for the Future".

Part of it reads: "It is urgent to complete these [meetings] before the engagement process leads to heavy media coverage or any active campaigning so that it is relevantly [sic] easy to recruit a representative sample of the population who have not been affected by any previous public discourse.

"Therefore it is intended to hold these events in mid-November."

The meetings being referred to are those being organised by the health authority to canvass the views of the public and patient health care groups about Fit For The Future.

That is a review aimed at examining how health care might be re-organised to modernise services and make them better for patients.

According to a public leaflet about Fit For The Future, the review will focus on whether some services now provided in hospitals can be moved out of hospital settings and be provided nearer to where people live.

But Health Emergency says the health authority is determined to push through possibly contentious plans without allowing the public or media the chance to mobilise opposition and start campaigns.

Spokesman Geoff Martin accused NHS bosses of "rushing through" the consultation.

"This isn't anything to do with making the NHS fit for the future - it's an old fashioned fit-up based on cash-led cuts and a phoney consultation. Key services will be lost and the door will be opened to more private operators like Casualty Plus," he said.

There are plans to demonstrate about the review at a strategic health authority "health summit" in Brighton next week.

According to Health Emergency, local NHS managers are poised to propose drastic changes, possibly including the closure of at least one hospital.

A shake-up of primary health trusts in October saw the number in Kent and Medway cut from nine to three.

The Kent Messenger Group invited the health authority to respond to the claims on Friday but it has not yet done so.