Expectant mums will no longer be able to give birth at Crawley Hospital after December.

Instead they will have to travel to East Surrey Hospital, Redhill, where maternity services and the special care baby unit will be based as part of the two hospitals'

shake-up of services.

Maternity services will be the first affected by the decision by Health Minister Gisela Stuart in June to allow Surrey and Sussex Healthcare Trust to downgrade Crawley Hospital and move major services to Redhill.

Several months' notice is to be given to expectant mothers in Crawley once a moving date has been confirmed.

Peter Jackson, lead clinician for obstetrics and gynaecology at Crawley Hospital, said: "Staff shortages in our department and in the special care baby unit have meant that over the past few months we have been unable to provide as comprehensive a service as previously.

"A number of mothers have had to be transferred out of the area for their delivery and we regret this."

He said he welcomed the end of the uncertainty which had been around for some time. They would now plan and provide a better inpatient maternity and neo-natal service at East Surrey Hospital.

Mr Jackson said: "Antenatal clinics, an early pregnancy unit and the antenatal day assessment unit will continue at Crawley, as well as the antenatal clinic at Horsham Hospital.

"We look forward to improving the facilities at Crawley as the allocated funding becomes available."

Trust lead consultant pediatrician Catherine Greenaway said paediatric medical and nursing staff were totally behind the move.

She said: "Because of staffing problems nationally and locally we need to amalgamate the neonatal services on one site as soon as possible so that long term we can offer an even better quality of care."

Trust head of midwifery Eileen Nolan said providing the best possible quality of care to mums and babies would always be the top priority.

They would be writing to all women booked at Crawley telling them what was happening and the options open to them.

She said even after the move, women would still be able to have their antenatal and postnatal care with their local midwife and GP.

She said: "Women due to have their babies in the coming months can be reassured that we will continue to deliver babies at Crawley until December at least."

The Government decision to downgrade Crawley Hospital means that all emergency inpatient and complex surgery will be transferred to East Surrey.

Crawley will lose its accident and emergency department, which will be replaced by a consultant-led urgent treatment centre, open 24 hours a day, every day.

But Crawley Hospital will get £4.5million for urgently needed renovation work, and a new renal dialysis, stroke and foetal monitoring unit.

The Health Minister also called for a working group to be set up to consider a new hospital for the area after the year 2015.