FEARS that babies could be exposed to health risks if hospital reorganisation proposals went ahead were voiced at a meeting to discuss proposed hospital mergers.

More than 150 people attended the Masonic Hall, in Bishop Auckland, County Durham, to hear how plans to reorganise the county's hospitals would affect them.

After listening to a detailed presentation by senior health officials, arguing that the proposals were inevitable if high-quality services were to be maintained, members of the public voiced concerns about the safety of services remaining at Bishop Auckland.

To loud applause, a member of the public asked whether removing the special care baby unit from Bishop Auckland, and transferring infants to Darlington, would increase the risk to the child.

Another local resident voiced fears that a mother-to-be might have to be rushed from Bishop Auckland to Darlington because a low-risk birth had become an emergency.

Dr Peter Jones, consultant paediatrician at Bishop Auckland General Hospital, said babies requiring special care would not be delivered at the new midwife-led unit. More complex births would be delivered at Darlington.

Dr Jones said a highly-efficient regional transfer system existed to care for very sick babies at major regional hospitals.

Dr Bob Aitken, a consultant gynaecologist and clinical director of the South Durham trust, said: "Mothers requiring urgent surgery would be transferred to Darlington. The incidence of low-risk patients needing such treatment is extremely low."

Earlier, Dr Aitken argued that it was inevitable that, because of the scattered population of County Durham and the increasing need to improve the quality of clinical services, it was inevitable that greater centralisation of hospital facilities would take place.

He forecast that unless reforms were carried out there would be a collapse of consultant-led units at smaller hospitals, partly because of reductions in the hours that doctors would be allowed to work in the future.

Ken Jarrold, chief executive of County Durham and Tees Valley Strategic Health Authority, said that residents could voice their concerns by writing to the authority or their local community health council (CHCs).

If the CHCs object to proposals for greater centralisation of hospital services in County Durham, it would be a matter for Health Secretary Alan Milburn and the independent reconfiguration board, he added.