Hospitals keep maternity services

NHS chiefs had said St Richard's Hospital lose services

An NHS trust has defended a £2.2m consultation process which resulted in business as usual at three hospitals.

St Richard's Hospital, Chichester, the Princess Royal at Haywards Heath and Worthing Hospital will all retain consultant-led maternity services.

The two-year consultation has been hailed as a victory for residents who fought to keep the threatened services.

"People wanted to have their say and we listened to their point of view," said NHS West Sussex boss John Wilderspin.

The final decision on the future of the three hospitals, made on Thursday, also ensures Worthing and St Richard's will keep emergency surgery and inpatients' children's services.

Merged trusts

Earlier this month, West Sussex County Council leader Henry Smith said residents had never wanted a reduction in services at the hospitals.

Mr Wilderspin said the consultation had led to the merging of two separate trusts which ran Worthing and St Richard's Hospitals.

It had also strengthened partnership between the Princess Royal and Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals Trust, which now operated as one hospital on two sites.

"As a result we have a strong future for specialist services in the county," said Mr Wilderspin.

"When we started this process one of our concerns was that we had small to medium-sized hospitals.

"We have a county of 750,000 people and we were concerned that we may end up with a lot of specialist services being provided outside the county."