However she collapsed and died on 4 January

However, she collapsed and died on 4 January.Simon Hughes, the Liberal Democrat spokesman on health, who organised the press conference for the family, said the number of beds available at Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Trust had fallen from 1,400 to 1,100 in two years.The number of operations purchased by Mrs Harrild's local health authority from the trust was to be cut by a further 5 per cent from April. "Next year ordinary local people who have a perfectly proper case for treatment will have less chance of getting operations because the contract isn't there for them," Mr Hughes said.Dr Knight said Mrs Harrild's case had been exacerbated by a high number of admissions over Christmas. However, a new building with 13 new intensive- care beds in it was lying empty, he added.A trust spokeswoman said that the building was not ready. The hospital had five more intensive-care beds than it did four years ago and a new cardiac centre had recently opened at St Thomas'.. Attempts by Stephen Dorrell, the Secretary of State for Health, to pacify two Tory rebels angry about the closure of hospital casualty units appeared to have failed last night. Sir John Gorst, MP for Hendon North, said after a meeting with Mr Dorrell that the Government could still not rely on his support.

Sir John first made the threat last month and has abstained on three key votes since doing so. He was accompanied to the Department of Health by Hugh Dykes, MP for Harrow East, who had been rumoured to be considering a similar protest.Sir John said that although the hour-long meeting had ended with the minister agreeing to consider some of his suggestions for resolving the dispute, he could not disclose details of what had been said.He said he was not expecting to meet Mr Dorrell again in the immediate future, but that he expected to hear from him on the matter soon."The situation remains as it has been all along. My policy is not to tell anyone what I am going to do."It doesn't mean that I won't, on some issues, vote against the Government or, if it is in the interests of my constituents, vote with them. They just can't rely on my vote," he said.Sir John abstained last month on votes about fisheries and harassment, and did so again yesterday on the Government's sentencing Bill.The complete withdrawal of his support would put the Government in a minority in the House of Commons.A spokesman for the Department of Health said that the MPs had talked to Mr Dorrell about matters relating to health in their constituencies."Mr Dorrell emphasised that he remains available for further meetings, as he is to all constituency MPs," he said.. The husband of the widow fighting a legal battle to have his baby had said this was what he would have wanted, the Court of Appeal was told yesterday.

Lord Lester QC, representing Diane Blood, said the question the three appeal judges had to address was not whether the couple were right in having that joint wish but whether there was a legal justification for not respecting that desire. Mrs Blood, 31, is challenging rulings by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority which banned her from using her dead husband Stephen's frozen sperm, as she did not have his written permission. The HFEA also told Mrs Blood she could not take the sperm abroad for treatment in a foreign clinic. A sperm sample was taken from Mr Blood while he was in a coma. "Had he been conscious there is no doubt he would have signed the consent form," said Lord Lester.Mrs Blood claims the rulings were unreasonable, and that her rights under European law superseded British legal restrictions.