Petition started over fate of Shropshire's rural maternity units

The petition is the latest move by campaigners concerned about what will happen to the midwife-led units in Bridgnorth, Ludlow and Oswestry.

It has been started by Worfield mother Bobbie Brown who said: "Bridgnorth and Ludlow midwife-led units are in danger of becoming 'birthing units' and being closed over night.

"We need to fight to keep these amazing services open 24 hours a day as they are now."

She said campaigners had been challenging Shropshire Clinical Commissioning Group and Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust over the lack of a solid commitment to fund the units in the long term "but no details have been announced yet about how rural maternity services will be funded beyond April 2017, when the current funding contract ends".

"We have growing support now for all three maternity units – Bridgnorth, Ludlow and Oswestry," she added.

"We have three campaigns running on Facebook, each with over 1,000 members, we have had media interest, gained support from our local town council and will be meeting with our local MP," she said.

Concerns over the future of the units have grown recently in recent months, particularly after the temporary closure of Ludlow in October due to the state of the building it was housed in, and a recent suggestion that Bridgnorth, Ludlow and Oswestry become "birthing units", on-call only during the night, to cut costs.

Most recently all three units, plus Shrewsbury, had to shut overnight for one night each because of a lack of medical staff over the festive period.

Bridgnorth and Shrewsbury closed from Christmas Day into Boxing Day and Oswestry from Thursday into Friday, while Ludlow's unit will be closing for on New Year's Eve into New Year's Day. All closures are 8pm to 8am.

SaTH has apologised for the inconvenience but says all mothers were warned in advance and said it was simply a temporary staffing issue rather than something that had a bearing on the unit's future.

But, Andy Boddington, Shropshire councillor for Ludlow North, who backed a march of more than 1,000 Ludlow campaigners in support of the town's maternity unit at the start of December, said with the plans to convert the midwife-led units into "birthing centres" in 2017, the overnight closures were a "taste of the future", hence the petition.