A UNION leader fears the temporary closure of Wycombe birthing services is the ‘thin end of the wedge’ and could see it shut for good.

Steve Bell, spokesman for Unison, spoke after bosses said the hospital’s midwife led unit would close from August 1 for three months.

They said there was not enough staff to make it safe – but said new staff had been found but were delayed because of notice periods and the need for safety checks. It would re-open, they pledged.

But Buckinghamshire Hospitals NHS Trust chiefs have long said the centre is at risk unless more mums use it, 450 a year. Official figures suggest about 360 are using it a year.

Mr Bell said: “Our concerns are that it may not reopen despite what the trust says.”

He pointed to its ‘desperate’ financial situation. Latest figures show it is £768,000 in debt after a major reduction in cash flow.

Mr Bell said: “We read in the press every day about public sector cuts and this may be the start of it in Bucks.

“If this unit is shut it will place greater pressure on the remaining services and staff. Our staff are already working at full capacity and have little reserves left.”

He said: “This is the thin end of the wedge and we are waiting to see how management are preparing to make the savings required by the Government.”

Mr Bell, whose union represents a significant number of non-clinical staff such as porters and cleaners, said: “There is an alternative.

“Unison and other unions have identified other ways to fund public services rather than cutting them, including collecting the £130bn tax that isn’t being collected from the wealthy.”

Yet Andrew Clark, chairman of the Buckinghamshire Local Involvement Network, the official NHS watchdog, yesterday said he had received ‘assurances’ it would re-open by October.

The closure means no births will take place at the hospital. Doctor-led births were removed in October last year. Serious A&E cases went in 2005.

Yesterday it said ‘severe staff shortages’ meant the unit had to close to be ‘safe’. This was the ‘least disruptive’ option, they said – and doing nothing would increase transfer risks.

The trust said it was short of 20 midwives and this was caused by ‘natural turnover’, staff not wishing to work in Aylesbury after the October change, maternity leave and ‘fluctuating long-term sickness’.

Staff had worked extra shifts but agency workers were not brought in over safety concerns and cost.

Home births and clinics will continue. Six were due to give birth at Wycombe during the closure period.

Yesterday The Bucks Free Press revealed one in five mums who went to Wycombe to give birth had to be transferred to Stoke Mandeville Hospital, Aylesbury.

Some 200 babies were born there from November to May, but a further 43 had to go to Stoke, before or after birth.

The Free Press has reported how mums have had to give birth in the back of ambulances during the journey from Wycombe to Stoke.

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