Maidstone Hospital could lose its maternity unit sooner than planned

The service at Maidstone Hospital will be transferred to Pembury Hospital, near Tunbridge Wells, and replaced by a midwife-only unit.

The Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust has a deficit of �16.7m for this financial year.

A spokesman for the trust's patient forum said the trust was caught between a "rock and a hard place".

�4m a year

Chairman Ian Thomas said he was worried the proposals would impact on front-line services.

"It's something we'll be quizzing the trust very hard on to make sure the patient experience is as good as it can get."

He added that cost-cutting measures had brought forward the proposal to close the maternity unit from 2010.

Managers believe that if the proposals came into effect and the hospitals were run more efficiently, there would be 120 fewer beds needed, four fewer theatres and 40 fewer clinics, bringing savings of �4m each year.

There will be an attempt to almost totally eradicate bank and agency staff and vacant positions in this trust over the next 12 months Rose Gibb, chief executive

Rose Gibb, chief executive of the trust, told BBC Radio Kent that the proposals were triggered by a need to modernise services and provide better care.

Also under the plans, blue-light ambulances would switch from Maidstone Hospital to a new trauma centre at the Kent and Sussex Hospital in Tunbridge Wells.

GPs would be able to admit their patients to specialists without going via accident and emergency.

Maidstone Hospital would continue to have an accident and emergency service for non blue-light work.

Benefits to patients would include:

• Faster access to consultants and more 24 hour cover

• Blue-light patients taken to theatres more quickly

• Better infection control (emergency patients who haven't been swabbed for MRSA would be kept in one place)

Ms Gibb also said: "There will be an attempt to almost totally eradicate bank and agency staff and vacant positions in this trust over the next 12 months."

The plans would take at least another year to implement, and would be discussed at the public trust board meeting in July.

All other services at the three hospitals would be unchanged.