MUMS have called for Dovercourt’s maternity unit to be reopened as a 24/7 midwife-led unit.

NHS bosses dropped proposals to close Harwich and Clacton’s maternity units following the Standard’s Save Our Baby Service campaign last year.

But the boards of both North East Essex Clinical Commissioning Group and Colchester Hospital, which runs the service, are set to recommend that Harwich and Clacton remain as an “on demand” midwife-led unit, with ante-natal and post-natal care continuing.

Mums have been left upset that the units will not return to being 24/7 midwife-led units.

Harwich maternity campaigner Jenny Semple also called for round-the-clock maternity services to be reintroduced at Dovercourt’s Fryatt Hospital rather than on-demand services.

“I suppose something is better than nothing, but this really is not good enough – it is not what we need and not what we want,” she said.

Read the full story in this week’s Standard, out now.