LEIGHTON Hospital bosses are assuring women affected by the collapse of a midwifery service they will get the support they need.

One to One – which specialised in home births – informed the NHS it could no longer run its services in the north west last week before entering administration on Wednesday, July 31.

More than 1,600 women have been affected – including 313 women from mid and south Cheshire.

But at Monday’s board of directors meeting, Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust – which runs Leighton Hospital, along with Victoria Infirmary in Northwich and Elmhurst in Winsford – confirmed it would support local women  who had been affected.

Emma McGuigan, director of operations at the trust, said: “We have been proactively contacting women in the area and facilitating their care.

“We have been providing assurance, and we have the capacity and the infrastructure to support those women.”

One to One provided both ante-natal and post-natal support for women in their homes.

Ms McGuigan added that the trust would be advertising for more midwives to join the team after agreeing with commissioners that it could support women who were being helped by One to One.

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Dr Paul Dodds, the trust’s deputy chief executive, added: “We have business continuity plans in place should anything like this ever happen.

“So in effect we have just triggered that business continuity plan and off we went.”