'No plans' to close maternity hospital, says trust

There are "no plans" to close a maternity hospital after a petition to save it was launched online, a health trust has said.

Dr Simon Opher, MP for Stroud, said Stroud Maternity Hospital will become "little more than a pop-up unit" and claimed it will offer daytime services only following a meeting with senior leaders at Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

The hospital closed its postnatal beds in 2022 due to a midwife shortage, and the trust suspended home births in November 2025 following complex birth safety concerns.

The trust denied the Stroud unit is closing and said, over the last six months, it had been working to "safely reinstate the home birth service" in Gloucestershire.

In 2025, 83 babies were born at Stroud Maternity Hospital, and 4,980 were born at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital.

A petition was launched claiming the partial closure of the hospital had been proposed, and alleging it would be restricted to daytime operations with services such as clinics and triage.

Opher said his meeting with health club bosses had been about the future of Stroud Maternity Hospital.

"The new proposals will effectively reduce Stroud Maternity Hospital to little more than a pop-up unit, which is medically and socially short-sighted," he said in a post on Facebook.

"They are part of a wider and deeply worrying pattern: the systematic erosion of midwifery-led care across England. We need to care for people as close to their homes as possible in their communities."

In a statement, the trust said it has no plans to closer the Stroud hospital.

"We recognise the temporary changes to home birth were deeply frustrating, and we want to thank women, birthing people and our maternity staff for their continued patience and understanding so that maternity services can reopen safely for everyone, no matter where they live in Gloucestershire," the trust said.

It added it was working to reopen the Aveta Birth Centre at Cheltenham General Hospital.

The centre closed in 2022 due to staff shortages and a need to ensure safety, according to hospital officials.

At present, the only hospital in the county where women can give birth and receive full postnatal care is Gloucestershire Royal Hospital in Gloucester.

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