Charlotte Church lent her voice to the campaign to save services at Charing Cross and Hammersmith hospitals over the weekend.

The Welsh singer posed with a poster for Save Our Hospitals protesters during Saturday's (June 20) anti-austerity march through central London, in which 250,000 people were reported to have taken part.

Hammersmith Hospital has already lost its A&E department as part of a major revamp of NHS services across north-west London.

The Government has said Charing Cross Hospital, in Hammersmith, will keep its emergency ward despite being downgraded to local hospital status, but campaigners fear this will be in a much reduced form to what is there at present.

The changes are part of the Shaping A Healthier Future programme, which health chiefs claim will improve care by concentrating specialist treatment at a smaller number of centres and providing more local facilities where possible.

Patrick Barron, chairman of the Save Our Hospitals group, said: "It was a great experience to march alongside NHS campaigners from across the country opposing cuts to the health service.

"Hopefully marches like this will help push the issue up the agenda, which is especially important while the Labour leadership battle is taking place.

"If we can show they [the NHS chiefs] haven't really consulted the local population about these changes we believe we can still stop the downgrading of Charing Cross Hospital, which is something they're trying to push through over the next few years."

Mr Barron added that Charlotte Church was not the group's only celebrity supporter, with The Queen actor Michael Sheen among its other high-profile backers.

The hospital protesters had gathered in Lyric Square, Hammersmith, on Saturday morning before joining the march organised in protest at public sector cuts.

Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, which runs Charing Cross Hospital, recently announced plans to transfer stroke services there from St Mary's Hospital, which campaigners claimed was a blow to the proposed downgrading.