A HEATED public meeting saw campaigners make passionate calls for a controversial health consultation to be scrapped, saying it is flawed and the plans unsafe.

Hundreds of people turned out to the Carlisle Success Regime meeting at the Crown & Mitre hotel last night to tackle bosses about their plans.

Angry protesters heckled throughout the meeting, expressing their disgust at plans to downgrade maternity and children's services in the west and close community hospital beds, putting more pressure on the Cumberland Infirmary.

Carlisle health activist Hazel Graham received a huge round of applause as she called for the plans to be scrapped.

Instead she proposed a community-led audit of the local NHS, leading to locally-driven solutions. "The majority of us reject the entire consultation. We feel it is flawed. Will you agree to withdraw the entire consultation and start from scratch?" she asked.

She also criticised the way the meeting was being run, with members of the public being told to ask questions rather than make statements. "You are encouraging us to ask questions when you should be here to listen to what we have to say. It's not a true consultation," added Mrs Graham.

But Stephen Childs, chief executive of NHS Cumbria Clinical Commissioning Group, which is responsible for the consultation, said they would not start from scratch. "No, we are not going to withdraw the consultation. We want to see this process through," he stated.

The meeting also gave rise to strong solidarity across communities, with campaigners from Carlisle, west Cumbria, Alston and other areas joining together to oppose the plans.

Together they called for the hundreds in the audience to vote on whether they wanted it scrapped, prompting an overwhelming show of hands.

Rebecca Hanson, a Cockermouth councillor who has published two reports into the impact of planned cuts to maternity care, said evidence shows that mums and babies will die if forced to travel from Whitehaven to Carlisle in order to access a consultant-led service.

She said: "We know birth outcomes for women who live one to two hours from obstetrics are horrific, both from medical logic and international research. When these changes go through we will have over 700 women a year under the care of the Carlisle infirmary in this situation.

"What are the plans for the Cumberland Infirmary to scale up its maternity resources not just to cope with the numbers of women coming in, but also the extra complexities these women will have?"

Maurya Cushlow, interim executive director of nursing and midwifery at North Cumbria Hospitals NHS Trust, admitted there was work to be done to up-skill the midwifery workforce and ensure the infirmary was ready.

"It's absolutely clear that, depending on the outcome of the consultation, there is some work we will have to do to manage that transition," she said.

Bosses also stated that full risk assessments would be carried out once the final options had been agreed. An angry Mrs Hanson heckled: "The risk assessments should be before the decisions. Do you not see that?"

Brent Kennedy, of the Carlisle Socialist Party, also received applause when he asked why, when it was clear women and babies were going to die, this still wasn't enough to withdraw the consultation.

He labelled the options flawed, adding: "This is a choice of death by drowning and death by strangulation and we reject them all."

Concerns were also raised about the impact on ambulance services, with paramedic and Unison representative Mike Oliver highlighting statistics which show that transfers between Whitehaven and Carlisle have risen significantly already. He said in 2012 there were 350 transfers, rising to 1,600 last year, even before the planned downgrading of many urgent services at the West Cumberland Hospital.

He called for assurances that ambulance services would be properly resourced, and was told they were still looking at all options.

Bosses were also asked where stroke patients would be cared for, with one staff member saying they have just cut beds at the Cumberland Infirmary despite planning to bring extra patients from Whitehaven.

A coach full of hospital campaigners from Alston travelled to the Carlisle for the meeting, both to highlight their concerns about planned cuts to community hospital beds and show solidarity.

Ahead of the meeting, protesters gathered outside the venue, including a group from the Joint Transport Unions and another from the Carlisle Socialist Party, accusing national government of neglecting the NHS.

Mr Childs came under fire for stating that the proposed service changes were not about money but improving quality and safety, when the previous night hospital chief executive Stephen Eames had told a public meeting in Keswick that finances were a key consideration.

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