A MOTHER turned health campaigner is hoping people power can save Wyre Forest Birth Centre as she prepares to present a petition signed by more than 2,000 people to a health chief next week.

Elizabeth Bytheway will hand over a petition to the chief executive of Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, John Rostill, urging him to reconsider his decision to close the facility, on Monday morning.

Wyre Forest MP, Dr Richard Taylor, will also be at the meeting, at Kidderminster Hospital.

Updating the Shuttle/Times & News on the number of signatures collected, Mrs Bytheway said she was "delighted" the petition had smashed the three targets she had set herself and her team of helpers in less than a month.

Initially, she aimed for 500 signatures, then 1,000 and, last week, 2,000.

She added she expected the number to swell even more before Monday - around 60 forms were still out at post offices, pubs, doctors' surgeries and chip shops in the district and at the facility itself, which had generated almost 200 names.

"We've come a long way since we started it and I've got a lot of support," said the Sutton Park Road resident.

She added: "One thing I'll be asking John Rostill on Monday is what the figures are for neo-natal death rates at Worcester and the rest of the trust."

Wyre Forest Birth Centre has been the subject of a discussion in the House of Commons this week.

During an adjournment debate on choice in the NHS on Tuesday, Dr Taylor told fellow MPs the facility had "rightly closed" after "some unexplained and totally unacceptable baby deaths".

He said: "The inquiry that looked into it exposed faults in that stand-alone birth centre that dated back to the loss of the acute district general hospital that previously supported it.

"Despite questions of safety at the time, the health service managers did not put safety measures into place with the consequences that have ensued. Stand-alone birth centres are safe and viable with the right protocols, as is demonstrated in Keeping the NHS Local."

Mrs Byetheway started her campaign after receiving post-natal care at Wyre Forest Birth Centre following the birth to her first daughter, Charlotte, in Worcester, last August. She said her experience at the midwife-led unit had been "brilliant".

A decision is not expected to be made on the unit's long-term future until after a group monitoring the implementation of the birth centre inquiry's recommendations has presented its findings in March.