Campaigners fighting to save hospital maternity services are urging as many people as possible to attend a crucial meeting on Thursday.

The boards of East Sussex Downs and Weald and Hastings and Rother Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) are gathering in Uckfield to decide whether to downgrade the consultant-led midwifery unit at Eastbourne District General Hospital to a midwife-led one.

Under the proposals being considered, the Conquest Hospital in St Leonards would keep its full maternity services and also become the site for the special care baby unit.

Tens of thousands of people including medics, midwives, GPs and residents opposed the plans during a public consultation held earlier this year.

They say lives will be put at risk if mothers needing urgent help have to travel to Hastings for treatment and have called for full services to be kept at both hospitals.

The chief executive of both PCTs, Nick Yeo, has recommended Hastings become the main site but campaigners are hoping other board members will either delay making a decision or throw the recommendation out.

The meeting at Uckfield Civic Centre starts at 9.30am and could last for more than three hours.

Save the DGH campaigner Liz Walke (crct) said: "As many of our campaign group as possible will be at the meeting and we are hoping members of the public turn up as well.

"Uckfield is not an easy place to get to but we will see what happens.

"The best result possible for us is that the board does not accept the recommendation but if there is a delay then we will be quite happy with that as well.

"We will just have to see what happens."

In a separate development it has emerged the South East Coast Strategic Health Authority (SHA), which has to ratify any decision made by the PCTs, is holding an extraordinary meeting at its headquarters in Horley, Surrey, on Thursday at 12.30pm.

Members will be asked to approve the proposal to develop Hastings and downgrade Eastbourne.

Campaigners are furious the SHA meeting has been arranged ahead of the outcome of the PCTs meeting in Uckfield.

Lewes MP Norman Baker said: "This is an outrageous process which merely confirms what many have long suspected, namely that the bureaucrats who run the NHS in our area made up their minds a long time ago that what they wanted was maternity services based at a single site in Hastings and that all the discussions, all the detailed representations, all the opposition has been for nothing.

"It will not be surprising if people conclude that the so-called consultation has been nothing more than a cynical exercise and a sham.

"If the SHA was doing its job properly, it would take time to evaluate the recommendations of the PCTs and do so neutrally.

"Instead, they seem to see their role merely to act as a rubber stamp and one operating with unseemly haste.

"And how can the SHA know that the PCTs will adopt the recommendations put before them? Do they know something we don't?"

Meanwhile a council leader has welcomed an NHS plan to downsize a maternity unit.

Peter Pragnell, leader of Hastings Borough Council, said the local authority supported the choice to maintain Hastings's maternity services and reduce those at Eastbourne.

The recommendation has been made by East Sussex Downs and Weald Primary Care Trust and Hastings and Rother Primary Care Trust, which want to save money by having just a single consultant-led maternity site in Hastings.

Coun Pragnell said: "Our cabinet voted for this proposal at our July meeting, and we obviously believe that this option is best for the people of Hastings.

"If the option was for only one consultant-led service, it is simply common sense for it to be based in Hastings. We have a large number of child-bearing age women and, as we know only too well, are still the most deprived town in the South East.

"There is much evidence that women from deprived communities are more likely to have a baby that is premature or has a low birth weight. It also means many young women from Hastings, and their families, have to rely on public transport, making it much more difficult for them to travel.

"And, of course, Hastings is midway between the maternity units in Brighton and Ashford so, geographically, Hastings is the right option too.

"The recommendation by the PCTs is clearly good for the people of Hastings, and it is a common sense one. I obviously hope that the recommendation will be agreed by the PCTs at their meeting on Thursday. It most certainly has the support of this council."

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