Concerns raised by health professionals about proposals to downgrade hospital services in Cumbria must be taken seriously, the British Medical Association (BMA) has warned.

In the past few weeks pressure has been growing on the Success Regime to scrap its plans to remove consultant-led maternity from the West Cumberland Hospital on safety grounds.

Several consultants, including a senior obstetrician, and dozens of GPs are concerned about the safety implications for mothers and their babies if the cuts go ahead.

Last week we also published leaked extracts of a letter from ambulance boss Derek Cartwright to the Success Regime, setting out detailed concerns about how the plan would work.

The chief executive of the North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) said the plan was not clinically safe and added that the transfer times to Carlisle quoted by the Success Regime had been underestimated. Although he later said his fears had been alleviated.

Midwives and retired health staff have also spoken out.

Now Dr Kailash Chand, the BMA's north west regional chairman, has called on NHS bosses to listen carefully to these concerns.

“For sustainability and transformation proposals to be successfully implemented it is vital that the any concerns raised by relevant health care professionals are taken seriously," he said.

“Changes of this magnitude must be developed in a transparent way with genuine attempts to engage both public and professional opinion as failure to do so will inevitably lead to errors being made.

“Delivering safe patient care must remain the focus as any attempts to rush through ‘transformation plans’ in an attempt to makes savings will ultimately put patients at risk.”

The Success Regime's preferred options form the basis of north, west and east Cumbria's Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP), currently being developed as part of a national initiative.