Maternity Service coul (From Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard)

Maternity Service coul

MALMESBURY Hospital's maternity services could be moved to Chippenham.

That's the view of a special maternity review group from the West Wiltshire Primary Care Trust, which presented its findings at a public meeting on Wednesday.

The review was carried out across the South West and will see the West Wiltshire Primary Care Trust send recommendations to the Kennet and North Wiltshire PCT about Malmesbury's maternity unit.

The Kennet trust will consider the recommendations in November and will make a decision on whether Malmesbury's new hospital will allow mothers to give birth within it.

The Kennet trust needs to save £11 million and is looking at the viability of the maternity unit, which has only 100 births a year.

However, the suggestion has angered supporters of Malmesbury Hospital's maternity wing.

Speaking after the meeting, Juliana Beardsmore, an antenatal teacher at Malmesbury Hospital, said: "I think it would mean less choice for the mothers, less capacity for care and a poorer standard of service. "Inevitably that would hit women who are less affluent."

West Wiltshire PCT acting head of maternity services Ann Nash said: "The recommendations are about consolidation - you could do all the activity at Malmesbury's maternity unit in Chippenham.

"But it is important to keep a focus for maternity in Malmesbury, as it is so far away."

Kennet trust director of services Phil Day said: "We will consider the recommendations of the maternity review together with the findings of our own maternity survey before deciding about the Malmesbury unit at the end of the year."

The Standard launched a campaign to save services at Malmesbury Hospital back in January after the Kennet trust revealed that it had a massive £11 million debt burden, including a £2.1 million share of debt from Bath's beleaguered Royal United Hospital.

The trust revealed that it would sell off part or all of the current Malmesbury Hospital to help pay debts but would replace the Burton Hill site, which opened in 1925, with a brand new hospital.

The hospital, which will be paid for as part of a public/private finance initiative, could go on one of either three sites in Malmesbury, including the current hospital site, on land at Filands, or at the former Lucent base in Cowbridge.

However, project chiefs for the new hospital, which will be open in December 2005, are adamant that the decision on the maternity unit, delayed until the end of this year, will not affect or slow plans for the new buildings, which are currently being finalised.