Campaign chairman Councillor Charles Kennedy has written to Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon demanding to see the figures which led her to conclude the unit could not be saved.

Ms Sturgeon declined to provide exact figures, but has emphasised that £100million is being spent at he hospital.

A new state-of-the-art ambulatory care and diagnostic centre (ACAD) is due to open at Stobhill next year, but all in-patient services will be tranferred to other Glasgow hospitals and the casualty department is to be down-graded to a minor injuries unit.

Responding to Councillor Kennedy, she said: "The NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGCC) Acute Services Strategy is a finely balanced, integrated whole.

"If the board were not moving the Stobhill casualty then they would not be building the new Stobhill Hospital in its present form, or possibly not at all – this alone is costing £100million.

"Similarly, if NHSGGC pulled Stobhill casualty out of the strategy, and left it as it was, this would have a knock-on effect on other services too, in that the casualty unit cannot function without particular specialities.

"Arguably, it would disrupt the entire programme or cause NHSGGC to incur significant additional costs running into many millions."

She added: "I must reiterate that attempting to make different decisions now, and impose them retrospectively on all the planning and investments that have taken place since 2002, would, in my view, significantly disrupt the process of modernising Glasgow's hospital services."

Councillor Kennedy said: "This is just another fudge by Nicola Sturgeon.
"I must conclude that she either doesn't know what the cost would be of maintaining the casualty unit at Stobhill or that the figure is embarrassingly low. What does she have to hide?

"We are not interested in the cost of the ACAD, which we have been in favour of from the very beginning.

"I have asked the Health Secretary the specific question four times and I have yet to get an answer.

"We are now hoping to have this question raised at Holyrood and, if an answer is still not forthcoming, I will be going to Alex Salmond to ask if this is the open and frank government we were promised."