Official reports will today deal a devastating blow to the drive to close accident and emergency departments across Scotland.

The expert panel set up to scrutinise plans for A&E care in Lanarkshire and Ayrshire is to say health board arguments for cutting services are deeply flawed.

Criticisms include the use of foreign research which is up to 20 years old, the omission of important information when considering options and applying more weight to the opinion of managers than doctors. Even a calculation by the Royal College of Surgeons is found wanting.

Last night, Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon said the reports "confirm the government's view" that the decisions to close two A&E units were "wrong".

The documents not only undermine the case for change in Ayrshire and Lanarkshire. They raise questions about the centralisation of hospital services across Scotland and beyond.

In the Lanarkshire report, seen by The Herald, the panel says: "Data from practice 15 to 20 years ago in other countries is now being used to justify reorganising care in NHS hospitals in Scotland, with effects that could potentially last for decades."

Arguments about the future of emergency services have been raging for years with thousands of people in communities from Caithness to Glasgow protesting to save services.

Plans to downgrade Monklands A&E in Airdrie, Lanarkshire, and Ayr Hospital A&E in Ayrshire to minor injury units were approved in 2006 by the last Scottish Labour administration.

When the SNP took office last May they said these A&Es must be kept, told the boards to draw up new proposals and created a scrutiny panel to examine them.

Both boards submitted proposals that still support schemes which cut emergency care.

NHS Lanarkshire has listed a plan where Monklands would lose intensive care, emergency medicine and surgery as the "preferred scenario".

NHS Ayrshire and Arran has backed a scheme which would axe emergency surgery and reduce the level of critical care at Ayr hospital.

However, the scrutiny panel, chaired by health economist Dr Andrew Walker, says there are "considerable strengths" to the established A&E structure.

It adds: "The panel's view is that the board has not made a convincing case for significant changes to emergency services."

Like other health authorities, NHS Lanarkshire and NHS Ayrshire and Arran argue specialist consultants who treat high numbers of patients get better results and they need to bring doctors together to reap these gains.

For some conditions - such as heart attacks and major trauma - the panel acknowledges centralisation might produce better outcomes. However, it concludes most patients would gain little.

The Lanarkshire report says: "The general case for change appears to be based on evidence that has little relevance to Lanarkshire in 2008."

Both boards quote a Royal College of Surgeons' report that says a population of 300,000 is required to support an emergency surgery department. The scrutiny panel says it finds "this figure was presented without being underpinned by a sound evidence base".

Ms Sturgeon said: "The next steps are for NHS Ayrshire & Arran and NHS Lanarkshire to carefully consider all the available information and agree preferred service proposals at their board meetings later this month."

Professor Bill Stevely, chairman of NHS Ayrshire and Arran, said they would consider the report. NHS Lanarkshire made a similar promise.