THE long-awaited maternity survey that will determine the future of Devizes and Malmesbury maternity units is to start in the next two weeks.

Both units are under threat of closure by the Kennet and North Wiltshire Primary Care Trust as it says they are too costly to run and have low occupancy levels.

A 500-strong protest march organised by the Gazette in February and the presentation of two petitions against closure of the units signed by more than 10,000 people forced the trust to undertake the survey.

The survey will establish whether there is more demand for the two units.

Approximately 2,000 women who gave birth between April 2002 and April this year will be invited to take part in the survey.

Survey forms will be given to the women by their health visitors and women can send the forms back anonymously to researchers at the University of Bath.

The survey has been delayed because of problems of the trust accessing patient records. It consists of ten questions which focus on the options that were given to the women on the place of giving birth and what their preferred choice would be if they become pregnant in the future.

The results of the survey will be discussed by the trust board at a meeting on September 23 at which they will make proposals for public consultation. A decision will be made by the trust in December.

Barbara Smith, chief executive of the trust, said: "We want to hear what mothers think about maternity services and in particular we want to know about where women would prefer to deliver their babies."

Mother Becky Veall, of Market Lavington, who helped to organise the protest march, said: "It's good the trust is doing the survey but they should have made it broader and surveyed women who have given birth over the last two years to give themselves a completely rounded view."

Mrs Veall said she and other mothers were prepared to continue to fight for Devizes maternity unit if the trust proposes it should close.

The trust's survey co-incides with a simultaneous review being carried out by the West Wiltshire Primary Care Trust, which provides maternity services at Devizes, Malmesbury, Chippenham and other hospitals.

Ann Nash, acting director of maternity services at the trust, has met with midwives and National Childbirth Trust members.

They told Ms Nash that the review should not concentrate solely on bed occupancy, which in some maternity units is as low as 30 per cent.

Ms Nash said: "The staff and users feel the review I am undertaking needs to look at the whole story.

"As well as bed occupancy I will be looking at how many women use the units for ante-natal, post natal care and those that are transferred from acute hospital maternity units."

The review has been ordered because primary care trusts say the cost of maternity services is too high.

Ms Nash said she would examine thoroughly the costings of each maternity unit. She said: "Some units have higher costs than others and I will be looking to see why that it is and seeing how many midwives work at each unit.

"I will be looking to see if units with a high running cost and those with low occupancy levels can be made more efficient."

Mrs Smith has denied the two reviews would be going through the motions. She said: "The review by West Wiltshire PCT is not a waste of time because it will be providing us with information that our review will not provide. Our review is different as we are questioning mothers and the results from our survey will feed into their review."