A maternity unit is to close as part of a major shake-up of clinical services in a Midland health trust, after hospital bosses approved plans yesterday.

All hospital births, neonatal care and the special care baby unit will be moved from the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch, Worcestershire, to the Worcestershire Royal Hospital in Worcester.

The plans, which form part of the Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust clinical services review, were approved by the trust board at a meeting. Paediatric services at

the Redditch site are also to be downgraded, as young in-patients will be treated at Worcester, while an "eight 'til late" assessment centre will be established at the Alexandra.

A new Women's Hospital will be established, at an as yet unknown cost, on the trust's Aconbury East site, which had previously been earmarked for demolition under the review.

Midwives at the Alexandra's maternity unit deliver around 1,800 babies a year and provide care for premature and sick infants, but the trust has a problem recruiting specialist nurses and if staffing levels fall the unit's safety could be compromised.

Hospital bosses hope to implement the changes by the start of the 2007/08 financial year, following a three-month consultation exercise in the autumn.

In April, the trust, which also runs the Kidderminster Treatment Centre, announced it was axing 720 jobs in order to save #30 million.