Plans to close maternity services in north London would have a "devastating impact" on women and families, MPs and councillors have warned.
It comes after the NHS announced that maternity units at either the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead or the Whittington Hospital in Archway could be wound down due to a "falling birth rate" in the area.
In a statement last month, the North London Central Integrated Care Board (ICB) said that services would need to be changed in the area to reflect “increasingly complex care” needs and tackle staff shortages.
The proposals would see the number of hospital sites delivering maternity and neonatal care in the area reduced from five to four, and the possible closure of birth suites at the Edgware Birthing Centre.
The NHS claimed this could lead to "more resilient services" with the remaining units upgraded to provide "high level care", backed by £40 million in new investment.
But several members of Brent Council’s cabinet and three local Labour MPs have written to the ICB to warn that the move would "force women who are already at risk of more complicated pregnancies to travel longer distances to seek maternity care".
This would risk "jeopardising the health of their babies", they added.
In the letter, the group said that while they understand concerns over staff shortages and funding raised by the ICB, none of these issues would be fixed by closing services entirely.
"It is very challenging to reopen services once they have closed, and we consider closure a last resort rather than a primary solution to the problems North Central London faces," they wrote.
"Cabinet members in Brent are also very concerned that the closure of maternity services at either the Royal Free or the Whittington would lead to a surge in demand at Northwick Park Hospital, which is already struggling with the impact of decreased funding and poor staff retention."
Instead of closing services, the signatories argued that the maternity unit at the Royal Free hospital should be upgraded.
"While we appreciate that reallocating funding to allow for such upgrades can be challenging, we urge the ICB to fully consider an approach based on long-term investment and improvement, rather than the closure of services," they wrote.
The decision to reduce maternity provisions would also exacerbate health inequalities in the area, they claimed, with no guarantee that an alternative site would be able to absorb the impact of the closure.
"Reducing choice does not reduce inequality – it exacerbates existing disparities in healthcare access. North London is already an area of significant socioeconomic disadvantage, and the lack of local maternity services would disproportionately affect women from low income communities.
"In this instance, women must be provided with the freedom of choice to access the healthcare services which suit them best."
The North Central London ICB covers Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Haringey and Islington.
The letter’s signatories include Tulip Siddiq, MP for Hampstead and Kilburn, and Dawn Butler, MP for Brent Central.
Jo Sauvage, chief medical officer for the North Central London ICB, told the Standard: "We want to improve the quality of care and outcomes for all people using maternity and neonatal services and give every child the best start in life.
"We know that around one in ten Brent residents choose to give birth in North Central London, just under 400 births a year. We’d encourage everyone to take part in the consultation so we can understand from local people what they feel the impact of these proposed changes would be and take this into account in our decision-making."
A public consultation launched last month and will run until March 17.
Northwick Park hospital in Harrow and St Mary’s hospital in Paddington are understood to have confirmed to the ICB that they have the capacity to take additional births should the proposed changes be implemented.
The ICB said that modelling shows that the proposed changes would impact around nine per cent of future births in Brent.
