Maternity plan to be approved

The board is reviewing maternity services

The closure of the Queen Mother's Maternity Hospital in Glasgow is expected to be approved at a meeting of the city's health board.

An expert panel has recommended the hospital be shut as part of a reorganisation of maternity services across the city.

Medical staff have warned the decision could cost lives.

Greater Glasgow NHS Board officials believe that there is one maternity hospital too many in Glasgow.

Clinical concerns

This is due in part to the falling birth rate and the cost of maintaining centres of excellence.

The issue was examined by an expert panel who recommended the closure of the Queen Mother's.

This would concentrate maternity services at the Princess Royal and the Southern General.

The panel also suggested the board consider the longer term relocation of the Royal Sick Children's Hospital at Yorkhill - which shares a site with the Queen's Mother's.

Paediatric surgeons say clinical concerns are being ignored and that young lives will be lost if the plan goes ahead.

They said the closure would lead to a drop in standards of care of newborn babies in the city and ruin the current "integrated" service on the site.

The surgeons complained that the panel based its recommendations on inaccurate information and "ignored" their advice.

Campaigners warn any such move creates an over-centralised maternity service and a problem for mothers right across the West of Scotland.