Birthing services at Okehampton Community Hospital are to remain suspended for a further three months — meaning the service has remained shuttered for more than 18 months.

The Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust and Northern, Eastern and Western Devon Clinical Commissioning Group (NEW Devon CCG) have confirmed to the Times that the suspension of deliveries and overnight stays, due to unsafe staffing levels, is to continue until at least April, when the service will be reviewed.

The news means that the service will have been suspended for a year and three quarters by the time of the April review, the service having initially been suspended in July 2017.

A spokesperson for the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust said: ‘The temporary suspension of deliveries and overnight stays remains in place at Okehampton for reasons of patient safety and will next be reviewed by the trust in three months.

‘An increasing number of women with complications in pregnancy are needing to give birth at Royal Devon and Exeter’s main maternity facility in Exeter and the trust is requiring its midwifery workforce to work more consistently within the acute unit to safely meet the needs of these patients.’

Lorna Collingwood-Burke, chief nurse with responsibility for patient safety assurance at NHS Northern, Eastern and Western Devon Clinical Commissioning Group, said: ‘We continue to support the temporary closure of community midwifery units at Okehampton Hospital on the grounds of safety. Patient safety is always our number one priority.’

Martin Perry, the chairman of Friends of Okehampton Community Hospital, said he was disappointed that there would be three months before such a review, but said he remained hopeful that if staffing was available and births rose in the area, the service might be resumed.

‘Maintaining a 24/7 service for an average of one birth a week is clearly not feasible, but these things vary and let us hope that by April the statistics change. The decision taken this week makes it clear that patient safety is at the core.

‘We cannot argue if the medical practitioners consider a birth in the acute hospital to be safer in very many cases. We are in regular touch with the RD&E and will keep our members informed of any relevant changes.’

It has been a difficult few years for the hospital, having also lost its GP surgery, the Okement Surgery, in April 2016 and its in-patient beds in February 2017.

Despite the news about the maternity unit, town councillor Jan Goffey, who has been heavily involved in efforts to secure the hospital’s future, said she was optimistic about the facility’s future.

‘There is a national shortage of midwives, which is the reason given for the closure of our maternity unit — plus the fact that with no other beds there, the hospital is closed at night.

‘I wonder if there’s any chance of a bed being available for straightforward births during the day, when there are nursing staff and hopefully a midwife around? There are midwives based there, after all.

‘The Okehampton Community Hospital is very much alive and well. Many clinics are being held there. The Redvers Unit, which was closed to in-patients, is home to the mental health team, who are using it for offices and patient consultations, I understand. There are other plans for using vacant parts of the building that are in progress.

‘If you as a patient, are asked to go to the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital, it is always worth checking if that procedure can be carried out at Okehampton — hip x-rays are now available again!

‘The building is very much in use and I am greatly relieved to report so!’