Prime Minister: 'general consensus' to downgrade maternity at West Cumberland Hospital

Theresa May says there is a "general consensus" among clinicians that maternity services should be downgraded at the West Cumberland Hospital.

The Prime Minister was responding in a letter to Copeland's Labour MP Jamie Reed, who has been pushing to keep consultant-led maternity services at the hospital in Whitehaven.

The Success Regime, an organisation set up by the Government to improve healthcare in north, west and east Cumbria, is considering centralising consultant care at the Cumberland Infirmary in Carlisle.

Campaigners say the long driving distance between west Cumbria and Carlisle would mean mothers who suffer birth complications could lose their babies, and their lives, if maternity consultants do not remain in Whitehaven.

In her letter, Theresa May says the North Cumbria University Hospitals Trust's preferred option is for a consultant-led unit alongside a midwife-led unit at the Cumberland Infirmary.

That would increase the number of births at the hospital from around 1,800 to around 2,800.

However, it would mean services being downgraded at the West Cumberland Hospital, where the number of births would be reduced from 1,300 to 300 to 400.

You can read the Prime Minister's full letter in response to Jamie Reed MP here:

Jamie Reed says the Prime Minister's response has undermined the Success Regime's public consultation, and shown it to be an "expensive sham".