FINAL confirmation that consultant-led maternity care will continue to be offered in the Barrow's hospital has still not been announced, despite plans for a new £11m maternity unit for the site going ahead.

A deadline for work to ensure all types of maternity care remain available at Furness General Hospital passed in February this year.

But no decision on whether keeping obstetricians at the Dalton Lane site is sustainable long term has yet been made, Cumbria's commissioning bosses say.

READ MORE: Key decision on future of Barrow's maternity unit delayed

However, despite the continued uncertainty, a scheme to build a purpose-built maternity unit in the hospital grounds by December 2017 is still going ahead to meet a separate deadline set by Dr Bill Kirkup in the Morecambe Bay Investigation Report.

Experts from the Royal College of Gynaecologists and Obstestricians set out four options for the way maternity care could be provided across Cumbria in the future.

They favoured option one - to keep consultant-led care within all four hospitals in the county, including FGH and the Royal Lancaster Infirmary - and gave county commissioners 12 months to ensure it was sustainable.

Senior leaders within the trust that runs FGH are now working on an action plan as part of the area's Better Care Together programme to address all of the issues raised by the RCOG team last year.

A report on the situation to members of the Cumbria Clinical Commissioning Group states: "Significant time has been spent ensuring that the interface between the RCOG and Morecambe Bay Investigation recommendations is fully understood and can be utilised to best effect in improving service safety and sustainability.

"It is recognised that further work will be required and this will be taken forward through the Success Regime and the Better Care Together Programmes."