Solihull and Birmingham NHS managers will propose the hospital has only a midwife-led birthing centre.
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Women who need a doctor led birth – about 75 per cent – would go to Heartlands or Good Hope hospital instead. The town’s birth rate is expected to rise 12 per cent by 2020.
They argue there is a shortage of paediatricians needed for sick newborns and there was less demand for these doctors as the number of sick children coming to hospital is falling.
The move is supported by doctors or midwives and national experts, two NHS primary care trusts behind the move will say.
The draft consultation document adds: “Estimates suggest it would cost an extra £2 million per year.”
The hospital closed to all births over managers’ safety fears in April and re-opened with midwife led births only in July.
Thousands opposed the long-mooted change, including Solihull Liberal Democrat MP Lorely Burt and Conservative MP Caroline Spelman.
After the General Election, Mrs Spelman, a cabinet minister, said she was ‘more hopeful’ full services would stay.
She spoke after health secretary Andrew Lansley said before the poll: “If we are elected to Government, I would require the primary care trust to commission continuing maternity services at Solihull, pending the outcome of a locally-led and clinician-led review of maternity services.”
Tory Solihull candidate Maggie Throup said in November: “Conservative policies back our campaign to keep full maternity services here in Solihull.”
The Sunday Telegraph reported at the weekend on UK service changes which it said were ‘likely to prove an embarrassment’ for Mr Lansley.
The NHS consultation document says: “We recognise that some people will be disappointed that we think a full obstetric unit cannot be re-introduced at Solihull Hospital.
“We have looked at this in considerable detail and have undertaken extensive consultation into its feasibility. All our research has led us to conclude that a midwife-led birth centre is the only realistic option.
“The other options have major obstacles and are considered unworkable at present.
“We consider a midwife-led birth centre to be the only sustainable option for childbirth at Solihull Hospital.
“The other options are not clinically or financially viable in the longer term even if they could be implemented.”
The plan will ‘strike a balance between pressures to centralise acute services and maintain patient safety, whilst maintaining local access’.
It says: “There will inevitably be unavoidable associated trade-offs.”
An ambulance from Solihull Hospital to Heartlands, in Bordesley Green, will take 15 to 45 minutes, it says, some 7.1 miles.
This is dependent on the ambulance arriving in eight minutes. Yet The Silhillian has reported how this does not mostly happen in Knowle and Dorridge.
The consultation states: “The clinical advice is the increase in transfer times between women’s homes and an alternative hospital will have negligible effects on the health of women and their children.”
More focus is needed on poorer communities in north Solihull and east Birmingham, they argue, including more community midwives.
It says: “The service must be maintainable for the whole of Solihull and east and north Birmingham.”
The consultation is being run by primary care trusts NHS Birmingham East and North and Solihull NHS Care Trust, which decide where NHS cash is spent.
It will run to January 24 and a response will be available from the two PCTs.
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