CAMPAIGNERS fighting to save a maternity unit from closure have won a stay of execution.
Kennet and North Wiltshire Primary Care Trust has decided they can have more time to make the case for keeping Malmesbury and the Devizes units open.
Consultation on the plan to close the small midwife-led unit at Malmesbury, used by many mothers in Swindon, had been due to end this week.
But the change was made in the wake of protests by mothers, a petition, Parliamentary lobbying and pressure from councillors and the local MP.
Earlier in the month Dr Suzanne Tyler, from the Univer-sity of Birmingham, who was commissioned by the Kennet and North Wiltshire health scrutiny panel to look at the closure proposal, said both units should be retained and even expanded.
Her view was that getting rid of the units would mean the loss of at least 11 jobs.
That would certainly make it difficult to retain the current level of service provided to pregnant women.
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