Health chiefs are facing growing pressure to scrap plans to remove consultant-led maternity from the West Cumberland Hospital .

The News & Star revealed yesterday that Andrene Hamilton, a senior maternity doctor, had written to the Prime Minister to stress that local consultants and midwives believe the proposal to send women in labour 40 miles to Carlisle is dangerous.

Now the chairman of the Medical Staff Committee (MSC), which represents doctors and consultants at North Cumbria University Hospitals NHS Trust , has backed up her claims - while a group of more than 50 local GPs have made their own plea to decision makers.

Together they are are urging members of NHS Cumbria Clinical Commissioning Group's Governing Body to listen to their professional concerns about the safety of women and babies.

Dr Hamilton's letter to Theresa May aimed to set the record straight after health chiefs claimed the plans had clinical support.

She has now been publicly supported by Suresh Rao, MSC chairman, and a group of more than 50 GPs from across Copeland and Allerdale, who have signed a letter reiterating their concerns.

Mr Rao said that despite the MSC's best efforts, it has been "difficult to get any rational discussion" with trust bosses.

He added: "The impression we get is that the trust is more concerned with preserving Cumberland Infirmary Carlisle (CIC) at the cost of the welfare of women and babies in west Cumbria.

"Anyone who has driven around Cumbria should be well aware of the poor state of the Cumbrian roads in winter and tourist traffic in summer that would unnecessarily put lives at risk."

Yesterday family doctors from west Cumbria ramped up the pressure on the GP-led CCG Governing Body, who will make the final decision about the Success Regime proposals next month.

As well as moving consultant-led maternity, the plans also include downgrading paediatrics and other urgent care in Whitehaven and cutting beds at both the community and acute hospitals.

Three GPs took their group's concerns to the Governing Body meeting in Carlisle yesterday, where they flagged up solutions that have been put forward by clinicians to make services sustainable and called for reassurances that these would be properly looked. "We feel strongly that the CCG has a duty of care to provide the same access and standard of healthcare for all of north and west Cumbria," they added.

The Success Regime has repeatedly claimed that they were working alongside local clinicians to draw up the plans.

But Mr Rao said: "The trust was fully aware well before the consultation process began that the midwife-led unit was the most unsafe and unwanted by all. It has not been made clear how or why such a dummy idea was put forward by the CCG as its preferred option."

He said instead of looking at how consultant-led care could be retained, talk then moved to centralising all births in Carlisle.

"Despite our best efforts it has been very difficult to get any rational discussion going as to why the only safe option for women in labour cannot be seriously considered," he said.

Mr Rao added that if this happened, it would have knock on consequences across the hospital.

"There are understandable anxieties as the obstetric service at West Cumberland Hospital is the last bastion before the fall of the paediatric, anaesthetic and A&E services and the collapse of health services in west Cumbria from a domino effect," he said.

Mr Rao is instead calling for wider efforts to boost investment in west Cumbria, which will in turn make the hospital sustainable. "This is what the Medical Staff Committee will be seeking," he added.