AN MP will urge constituents to sign a petition this weekend over ongoing concerns about cuts to services at Bishop Auckland Hospital.

The area's MP Helen Goodman is concerned that services at the hospital have and will continue to be eroded if residents don't stand up and protest.

The petition – due to be presented to the House of Commons shortly – calls for Bishop Auckland Hospital to have its midwife-led maternity and breast screening units reinstated and funding guaranteed for its urgent care centre for the next ten years.

The hospital’s maternity unit was suspended in July, 2013 amid safety fears and breast-screening facilities were transferred to Darlington Memorial Hospital – 25 minutes drive away – in August. There are presently no plans to close the urgent care centre.

Mrs Goodman will be joined by Bishop Auckland county councillor Joy Allen along with a number of other Labour councillors and supporters outside the Newgate Shopping Centre from 10am on Saturday, September 12 to collect signatures.

We don’t have a midwife-led maternity unit anymore and when the mammography equipment at Bishop Auckland Hospital failed (in July, 2013) the new state-of-the-art equipment went to Darlington," said Mrs Goodman.

“We don’t want the same thing to happen to the urgent care centre at Bishop Auckland, so we are giving people a chance to express their views.”

However, NHS bosses have been quick to re-assure residents.

Edmund Lovell of Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Patient safety must be our priority, and the midwife-led unit remains closed because our consultants and midwives do not believe they could guarantee a safe outcome for mums who developed complications during labour and needed to be transferred to a consultant-led unit (at Darlington Memorial Hospital).

“Before closure, there were around five births a week at the unit – 30 per cent of which required a transfer.

“Routine breast screening continues to be provided from mobile units in Bishop Auckland and the Dales. Local women undergoing mammogram checks every few years as part of the national breast screening programme can continue to be seen locally.

“Our breast cancer team believes that more advanced diagnostic tests for women should be provided at Durham and Darlington, where most treatment is carried out, and where new state of the art equipment was recently installed.”

Mr Lovell added financial assistance is available for people on benefits and low incomes attending scheduled hospital appointments. Visit nidirect.gov.uk/hospital-travel-costs-scheme for more information.