A RESCUE plan for the Helme Chase Maternity Unit has been thrown back into the melting pot by health chiefs who say the public need more information about the changes.

Bosses at Morecambe Bay Health Authority - which holds the purse strings for the Kendal unit - say hospital chiefs' proposals to change Helme Chase to a midwife-led service would almost certainly require public consultation, and it would be very rare for just one option to be put forward.

They are concerned that the proposed changes would cost an extra £220,000 to £250,000 a year, when maternity services costs in Morecambe Bay are already unusually high.

Other fears are that hospital bosses have looked at Helme Chase in isolation from the maternity units at Barrow's Furness General Hospital and the Royal Lancaster Infirmary, and that a falling birth rate may not have been taken into account.

The health authority's concerns would appear to throw the future of Helme Chase into doubt again.

However, health authority chiefs said this week they have "no plans" to close Helme Chase.

As previously reported by the Gazette, a steering group was set up by Morecambe Bay Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs Helme Chase, to review and secure the unit's future, partly because the current staffing does not meet stringent new national guidelines.

The steering group eliminated options including maintaining the status quo; closure; making it a self-sufficient consultant-led unit or a community service led by GPs.

The preferred community midwife-led service would result in 160 higher risk births each year taking place at the Royal Lancaster Infirmary, rather than at Helme Chase.

But MBHA director of public health Dr Nick Gent said if changes were to be put out to public consultation, more information would be needed about the options.

Dr Gent said the falling birth rate should be taken into consideration.

Across Morecambe Bay, births have fallen to 3,000 a year, and are predicted to fall further to 2,700, although the number of babies born at Helme Chase has remained static at around 600 a year.

The net fall had "serious implications" for the way maternity and obstetric services were offered throughout the bay, Dr Gent said.

He was also concerned about the finances.

The £220,000 costs are mostly made up of additional midwives at the RLI, and more community midwives in the Kendal area.

Dr Gent said: "The health authority has no plans at the present time for closure of Helme Chase.

"In an ideal world all we would do is look at the quality and safety of the service, but we have a restricted financial budget, and if £220,000 were to be spent on this service, it would be £220,000 that would not be spent on other issues."

Spokeswoman for the Royal College of Midwives at Helme Chase Audrey Hawkes said her members would be delighted if there was public consultation, but if the midwifery-led service went ahead they would offer an excellent, safe service.

"They (the members) feel that we are being presented with a set of facts and told 'this is going to happen', so looking at other options can't be anything but healthy," she said.

"We want to know what our future is, and get on with what it's going to be."

Chief officer of health watchdog body South Cumbria Community Health Council Mary Sloan was delighted such an "emotive" issue would be consulted on.

Health authority bosses are now in urgent discussions with hospital trust chiefs.

Nobody from Morecambe Bay Hospitals NHS Trust was available for comment.