A PUBLIC meeting is being held to enable residents to voice opinions on the shake-up of health care on Teesside.

Councillors representing Ingleby Barwick, near Stockton, are urging as many people as possible to attend the meeting tomorrow.

It has been organised by North Tees and Hartlepool Primary Care Trust (PCT) with the aim of consulting with residents over Professor Ara Darzi's report, which has suggested that consultant-led care for women and children be moved from the University Hospital of North Tees to the University Hospital of Hartlepool.

The proposals have led to an outcry from many people, who fear a poorer service for the people of Stockton if the plans go ahead.

The suggestions mean all Caesarean sections and epidurals will have be carried out at Hartlepool, and the special care baby unit and breast cancer care unit will also be moved.

Some have voiced fears that it will put lives at risk, particularly where complications arise in labours that were originally expected to be straight-forward. Transferring expectant mothers to Hartlepool could prove fatal, they said.

The meeting will be held at All Saints' School, in Blair Avenue, Ingleby Barwick, from 6pm

Councillor David Harrington, a member of the health and social care select committee and an Ingleby Barwick representative, said: "We welcome the move by the PCT to hold this public meeting in Ingleby Barwick and urge people to attend.

"Residents across Ingleby Barwick and the villages of Hilton, Maltby and High Leven have expressed concern about these proposals at our ward surgeries over the past few months."

The consultation period for the suggestions in Prof Darzi's report comes to an end later this month.