HOSPITAL births across the county will be moved permanently to the Worcestershire Royal Hospital.

The controversial decision was made this morning as part of a crucial meeting in Bromsgrove formally deciding the future of acute services.

The governing bodies of Worcestershire's three clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), which hold the purse strings of NHS care, approved the proposed clinical model unanimously.

The model includes moving all hospital births from the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch to the Worcestershire Royal Hospital in Worcester.

Inpatient children’s services will now also be moved from Redditch to Worcester, while outpatient and urgent services for children with minor and moderate illnesses will remain in place.

Both accident and emergency departments will remain open 24 hours a day but, due to the transfer of inpatient children’s beds, the A&E at the Alex would be for adults (over 16 years old) only.

All emergency surgery will now take place at Worcester.

Most planned orthopaedic surgery, planned breast surgery and some planned gynaecology surgery will move from Worcester to Redditch.

More ambulatory care - outpatient diagnosis, observation, consultation, treatment, intervention and rehabilitation - will also move from Worcester to Redditch.

An increase in day case and short stay surgeries will transfer to Kidderminster Hospital.

NHS bosses maintain that 95 per cent of patients would continue to receive their care in the same hospital as before, with 80 per cent of children who would normally go to Redditch continuing to do so.

Worcester and Redditch will have new 'Urgent Care Centres' which would treat adults and children with minor and moderate illnesses and injuries.

Diagnostic tests and outpatient appointments will still take place in all three hospitals.