WOMEN in labour from northern Devon and north Cornwall could face long journeys amid peak summer holiday traffic to get to hospital if a health trust goes ahead with “temporarily suspending” birthing services at North Devon District Hospital (NDDH) from August 11.

More than 6,000 people have signed a petition to protect maternity services at the Barnstaple site started by North Devon’s Liberal Democrat MP Ian Roome following the announcement by the Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust yesterday.

The trust says it will be short of consultant obstetricians and gynaecologists by up to 50 per cent which means it cannot safely maintain births at the hospital.

But it says it is “exploring every available opportunity to avoid suspending the service on August 11, working closely with neighbouring providers, NHS Devon Integrated Care Board and NHS England South West,” it said.

NDDH is the most remote acute hospital in mainland England and serves a wide area of towns and rural villages across North Devon and North Cornwall.

Women will have attend Exeter, Taunton or Plymouth hospitals to give birth instead if the suspension goes ahead.

North Devon councillor Pru Maskell (Con, Braunton West and Georgeham), a former staff nurse at NDDH, said the journey to Exeter was long and a “scary prospect” for high-risk pregnancies.

She said that a dual contract had been set up over 10 years ago so obstetricians were shared between the RD&E hospital and NDDH site before the two hospitals merged into a single organisation but in recent times NDDH had been relying a lot on locum and agency staff.

The trust said additional staff shortages and absence had “tipped the balance into it being unsafe to continue beyond August 11.” It couldn’t confirm how long the closure would be.

Any closure would put pressure on the ambulance service and staff at Exeter and other hospitals.

The healthcare trust says that every woman who is 34 weeks pregnant or more will be receiving a phone call “soon” from one of the trust’s midwives, to discuss their own birth plan.

“Our RD&E and NDDH maternity teams have worked so hard and held this service together for many months, working extra and longer hours to ensure our families got the care they needed,” said chief medical officer Vanessa Purday.

“However, despite our best efforts we cannot staff our medical rota in August.

“A key priority now will be ensuring that those women and families who are due to give birth receive timely, accurate information about their options, and are fully supported to make choices that are right for them. We don’t have all that detail yet but will be issuing it as soon as we can.

“This is a planned temporary suspension. We are doing all we can to reopen the unit as soon as possible. We are receiving advice and support from other trusts that have successfully reopened services following temporary suspensions.

“Alongside this, we will continue to focus on recruitment, training and workforce stabilisation to get the service back open.”