CAMPAIGNERS battling to save the Devizes and Malmesbury maternity units look set to win their fight for more public consultation on the plans.

The consultation period is due to end on Monday but it is expected that on Tuesday the Kennet and North Wiltshire Primary Care Trust, which is behind the proposals, will bow to pressure from MPs, councillors and protesters and extend the deadline.

Paula Winchcombe, the chairman of DASH2, the Devizes action group set up to save services at Devizes Hospital, is delighted.

Mrs Winchcombe, the Mayor of Devizes, said: "DASH2 is firmly in favour of an extension to the consultation. We asked for a decision on maternity to be deferred because of the new chief executive arrangements at the PCT as well as three new non-executive directors joining.

"Also, their financial report has not been in the public domain sufficiently long to be explained and digested."

The fight to save the maternity units and halt proposals to transfer women to Chippenham and Trowbridge gained further momentum this week with the release of a report by health expert Dr Suzanne Tyler.

She not only called for the units to be retained and their use expanded, but said the proposed closures jeopardised a high quality service of which the PCT could be justly proud, for a small financial gain.

Dr Tyler, of the University of Birmingham, was commissioned by the key Kennet and North Wiltshire health scrutiny panel to examine the PCT's proposals. The panel considered her report on Friday and agreed to adopt it as its response to the PCT's consultation.

Dr Tyler, who was previously head of policy at the Royal College of Midwives, told the panel: "I believe there is substantial scope to increase the use of Malmesbury and Devizes if the will was there. Community maternity units ought to be the first choice offered to women who have a normal pregnancy."

She said there are 57 midwifery-led community maternity units in England and that Wiltshire was at the forefront of providing such units.

She said: "Midwifery-led community maternity units are ideal for women expecting to have a healthy pregnancy, straightforward birth and healthy baby but who do not wish to give birth at home.

"The proposals for reconfiguring maternity services as presently stated will have the effect of reducing choice for some women, whilst failing to extend choice to any others."

The PCT says closing both units would save £318,000 and would include the loss of 11.5 midwife posts.

Dr Tyler said: "It is difficult to see how with an overall reduction of almost 12 whole time equivalent staff, the levels of service currently provided to all women using the community maternity units can be retained.

"With fewer midwives to care for the same number of women there must be serious doubts about the time available to spend with each woman, particularly in delivering ante natal and post natal care."

She also believes that the £15,000 additional travel costs allocated for midwives who would be based in Trowbridge and Chippenham would not be enough. She says: "This budget appears very low and will either be rapidly overspent or outreach will have to be curtailed with more ante natal and post natal care transferred to Chippenham and Trowbridge."

She said the savings to the PCT would be passed on to the women and their families in increased travelling costs.

She said the proposed savings accounted for only three per cent of the PCT's overall £10 million deficit.

She adds: "Given the high quality of these services, the huge contribution they make to impressive health outcomes and the high regard in which they are held by professionals and women, I would suggest the PCT is jeopardising a service for which it can rightly be exceedingly proud for a small financial gain."

As well as retaining Devizes and Malmesbury maternity units and expanding them, Dr Tyler has come up with two alternative suggestions.

These are to transfer births but keep Devizes and Malmesbury maternity units for ante natal and post natal care or close both Devizes and Malmesbury units and build a new midwife-led unit between Swindon and Andover.

Phil Day, director of community services at the PCT, was at the panel meeting and said of Dr Tyler's report: "We are very pleased to receive the report, it's a comprehensive report and we shall give it our full consideration."

The PCT board meets on Tuesday when it is expected to extend the public consultation period.

It came under fire from North Wiltshire MP James Gray and other campaigners for releasing detailed financial information relating to the proposals several weeks after the consultation began.

Mr Day said: "The PCT board will at its meeting on April 27 consider a recommendation to extend the consultation. People have said they want a bit more time to respond."

He could not indicate how long the consultation could be extended by and said a revised timetable would have to be agreed with Wiltshire County Council's overview and scrutiny committee.

The board meeting, at 10am on Tuesday at the PCT's headquarters at Southgate House, Pans Lane, Devizes, is open to the public.

More signatures have been received to be added to the Gazette's petition calling on the Health Secretary John Reid to retain the Devizes and Malmesbury maternity units. The total number of signatures is 9,790.