Part of a children's hospital could be turned into a midwife-led maternity unit.

The Argus can reveal that managers at Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust want to set aside an area of the Royal Alexandra Children's Hospital in Brighton for the new department.

It will be a home-from-home environment with the capacity to handle up to 600 births a year.

The aim is to ease pressure on the busy main consultant-led unit at the neighbouring Royal Sussex County Hospital.

Currently, women in the city wanting to give birth in a dedicated midwife run centre have to travel 25 miles to Crowborough.

Hannah Sherlock, from the Brighton and Hove branch of the National Childbirth Trust, welcomed the plans.

A trust spokeswoman said: “We are still very much in the planning stage but there is a real will to provide a unit like this that will give women more of a choice about where to give birth.

“There are also plans to recruit midwives to provide the service.”