NHS reforms will mean fewer hospitals offering a full range of services, the health secretary has said following a warning of protests against cuts.
NHS reforms will "almost certainly" mean fewer hospitals offering a full range of services, health secretary Patricia Hewitt has said.
Provision would be more specialised and community-based, Patricia Hewitt told the BBC's Politics Show.
But services would be provided at more specialist regional centres and in the community, she added.
She said District General Hospitals would not disappear but continue to change as modern medicine is changing.
She told BBC One's Politics Show that local hospitals were changing because modern medicine was changing.
Campaigners say a rising number of protests over the NHS could rival the 1990s rebellion against the poll tax.
Campaigners say a rising number of protests over the NHS could rival the 1990s rebellion against the poll tax.
Human chain
Ms Hewitt said District General Hospitals would continue to change but would not disappear.
Demonstrators are due to form a human chain around a West Sussex hospital and several rallies took place on Saturday.
"It's now possible to do so much more in the community that previously you could only do in an acute hospital but also with medicine becoming increasingly complex and specialised there are some cases for which you are much safer in a specialist centre," she said.
The Department of Health said decisions on significant changes will only be made after full public consultation.
"You will still need local hospitals but they won't be the same as they were 10, 20, 30 years ago.
The government has said the practice of providing a wide range of care under one roof was not right for the 21st century.
"We will have a different range of hospitals. We're not sitting in London trying to work out what the right solution is in different places.
There's been nothing like this since the spontaneous rebellion against the poll tax Geoff Martin, Health Emergency
"It means that these decisions get made locally. So I'm not going to sit here and tell you exactly how many hospitals of different kinds there are going to be.
NHS Trusts are looking at shifting care away from hospitals into community settings and placing greater emphasis on the private sector and 60 sites are said to be under threat.
She said there would "almost certainly" be a smaller number of hospitals offering a full range of services.
Meanwhile, the NHS ended last year more than £500m in deficit, which has already led to job cuts, delayed operations and ward closures.
"What I think will happen in the next few years is we will have a limited number of regional specialist centres that will treat people who need that particular type of treatment. But that is an improvement, not a cut."
'Good' hospitals
The protests have attracted both health professionals and members of the public affected by potential changes.
The Keep Worthing and Southlands Hospitals campaign will gather at the site on Sunday afternoon.
On Saturday, more than 1,000 people took part in a protest in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, where Hinchingbrooke Hospital is vulnerable to closure because of a £24m debt.
Supporters also came from Suffolk where Hartismere Hospital in Eye is to close and 16 beds are to go from Aldeburgh.
A Huddersfield protest related to a decision to switch the town's maternity services to a hospital in Halifax.
In recent weeks demonstrators have also turned out in Southampton, Nottingham, Cambridge, Redditch, Manchester, Sheffield, Birmingham and Epsom.
"An extraordinary grass roots movement against government policy on hospital closures and privatisation is putting thousands of people on the streets every weekend in villages, town and cities the length and breadth of the country," said Geoff Martin, head of campaigns at pressure group Health Emergency.
"There's been nothing like this since the spontaneous rebellion against the poll tax in the early 90s.
NHS clinicians and managers need to work with local communities to decide on the best organisation of services for patients in their areas Department of Health
"The government is right to be worried. The full scale of its closure programme, which will involve up to 60 major acute hospitals, has yet to hit home and when it does the scale of the protest will ratchet up several notches."
Karen Jennings, head of health at Unison, said local people were joining protests "in their droves".
"It shows that people are not interested in choice or privatisation," she said.
"What they want is a good local hospital they can use when they are sick."
Labour leadership contender John McDonnell MP has said the government risked losing dozens of seats at the next general election in areas affected by NHS cuts.
The Department of Health said the government's white paper on the future of hospital services was "based on what the public told us they wanted from community and primary health services".
A spokesman said: "The NHS is also looking at the safest and most effective way of delivering care and this does mean that there will be changes.
"It does not mean wholesale closures of district general hospitals, but it does mean that NHS clinicians and managers need to work with local communities to decide on the best organisation of services for patients in their areas."
