RUMOURS about the future of maternity services at the Friarage Hospital, Northallerton, persist because more and more people are aware that closure is an option that is being looked at.

Although the South Tees Hospitals NHS Trust and the primary care trust emphatically denied that it had plans to close the unit, it remains one of four options that have been discussed by managers and staff. It is still an option which could become a reality if the current arrangements fail to work.

Those arrangements about staffing of the maternity unit by consultants and junior doctors were negotiated specially with the relevant Royal College that police doctors' training and clinical standards. They will be subject to review.

Time will tell if those arrangements will be sustainable in the long term. There are fears that while the unit is adequately staffed at present, the trust could struggle to recruit junior doctors in the future.

So there are no plans to close the maternity unit, but it cannot be ruled out.

Health managers are acutely aware of public sensitivities on the issue. Maternity services generate an emotional response in people because the local maternity hospital is, for most people, a place where lives are changed and enriched forever. To that extent maternity services are different.

If the trust, plagued as it is by considerable financial problems, changes its mind on the issue, the political and public row that will erupt will make Richmond's battle over its council assets look like a minor squabble.

The trust has been warned.