WHILE the local PCT is under extreme cost pressures at this time, the closure of Devizes Maternity Unit is not an option which will save them money.

The suggestion that all deliveries could be transferred to another unit does, on the face of it, appear attractive, but there are a number of points to consider.

1. Up to 95 per cent of the annual expenditure in the unit will be staff and inevitable medical costs. This includes post and ante-natal work which would remain, regardless of where mothers delivered.

2. All peripheral maternity units in the area already have a staff to delivery ratio significantly below the national average, increasing the number of deliveries at any chosen unit must require a proportional increase in staffing.

3. The only way therefore to cut maternity costs as one local GP forcefully pointed out at the Devizes workshop is to make midwives redundant, an impossibility given that the birth rate in the whole area will only fall by one or two deliveries a year.

We have central Government clearly stating that community unit closure is not a favoured policy.

We have the people of Devizes stating, in no uncertain terms, that maternity services should remain.

We have a cost benefit to the PCT of closure so small that it represents less than one per cent of its projected deficit and 0.02 per cent of its annual budget.

Is closure really an acceptable option?

MICHAEL MAY

High Street

West Lavington,

Devizes