Politicians from all the major political parties are joining forces with independent campaigners, patients and hospital staff to stage a mass rally to protest against the rumoured closure of the Royal Surrey County Hospital. The event has been organised by South West Surrey MP Jeremy Hunt and Guildford MP Anne Milton.The rally will take place in Guildford High Street by Holy Trinity Church at noon on Saturday 21 October.Jeremy said: ""I would urge people to turn out this weekend and lend their support to the Royal Surrey. This rally is just the beginning of what will be a very vocal campaign to save our hospital. We will not allow them to close this hospital and Anne and I will be doing everything in our power to prevent it from happening.""The threat to the Royal Surrey looks set to be amongst the first of a wave of hospital closures which will sweep across the NHS following revelations by David Nicholson, new Chief Executive of the NHS, that he expects as many as 60 district general hospitals to face significant cuts in services.Commenting on the rally, spokesman for the independent Save the Royal Surrey Campaign, Chris Marks, said: ""The Royal Surrey is an NHS success story which is now under threat because of the Department of Health’s headlong rush for cuts. ""As a clinician at the hospital I am able to witness first hand the high quality of care given to local people, including having the joint lowest mortality rate in England, delivering world class care for thousands of desperately ill cancer patients and achieving a small financial surplus in the past year.""Despite this record of success, we fully expect the threatened closure of the Royal Surrey to be made public by the Strategic Health Authority in the next few weeks, although we have yet to hear a convincing explanation of why this is necessary. If it can happen to a successful hospital such as the Royal Surrey, then I ask a simple question: where next?""I urge everyone who is concerned about the swingeing cuts and closures being threatened in the NHS to join us in Guildford to ensure that Patricia Hewitt hears our voices loud and clear.""