AN INDEPENDENT report has suggested Dorset County Hospital look at integrating its children’s and maternity services with Yeovil as an alternative to relocating them to Poole or Bournemouth.

Campaigners fighting to keep services in Dorchester have welcomed the suggestion but have warned that “a lot more work needs to be done” to find a solution for families.

The campaigners met with bosses from the Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) to discuss the findings of a review it had commissioned from The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.

The panel conducting the review included experts from The Royal Colleges of Obstetricians, Nursing, Midwifery and Anaesthetists and looked at both children’s services and maternity services.

After speaking with staff and those using the hospitals, and taking into account travel times facing patients and their families, demand and capacity, staffing and resources the panel came up with a number of recommendations that will help inform the CCG’s clinical services review.

These included improving community based services, creating a strong Dorset-wide team of midwives, health visitors and nurses, providing easier access to home birth, increasing midwife-led care and reorganising hospital care.

The suggestions for hospital care included neonatal services for babies born under 32 weeks being treated at a specialist unit in Poole or the intensive care unit in Southampton with Dorset County Hospital providing a Special Care Baby Unit for babies born after 32 weeks.

The CCG stressed that there never had been any consideration of closing the SCBU.

Other proposals included clinicians and boards of directors at Dorset County Hospital and Yeovil District Hospital working together over the next six months to decide whether integrated maternity and paediatric services would provide a sustainable future.

Chairman of the CCG Dr Forbes Watson said: “Our priority is to look at appropriate integration for the benefit of patients.

“The external view is that it’s a very reasonable proposal, it’s absolutely worth putting in the effort to see if it can happen, but we have to accept there is work to be done."

“As a CCG we are absolutely committed to supporting that extra work to be done.”

The Royal College said that, due to the size of the units at Dorchester and Yeovil, they are not sustainable as stand-alone facilities in the long term and if integration is not possible, DCH will have to look to integrate services with hospitals in Bournemouth and Poole.

County councillor Ros Kayes, who has been supporting the Dorset County Hospital campaigners, said that travelling to Yeovil for some services would represent a better solution for many patients than travelling to Poole or Bournemouth.

Campaigner Naomi Patterson, whose son George is regularly treated at the Dorchester hospital, said: “It is positive but there is still a lot more work to be done.

“I’m happy the SCBU is still going to be at DCH and I think it’s a fantastic idea to develop the community nurses as I use them and it works well for me, it can help keep George out of hospital.

“We will see how it goes over the next six months.”