HEALTH bosses in Worcestershire have said mothers-to-be will not be affected by a planned four-hour strike by midwives next month.

On Monday members of the Royal College of Midwives voted in favour of staging a walkout on Monday, October 13 in a row over pay.

The strike will begin at 7am and is being staged after the government announced only NHS staff who are not entitled to automatic progression-based pay rises were to be given a one per cent salary increase.

This will be the first in a three-day series of strikes, with council workers set to walk out on October 14 and civil servants the next day in separate disputes with the government.

Divisional director of operations at Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust’s women and children’s division Cathy Garlick said the organisation was working to determine how much it was likely to be affected by the strike.

“Whatever happens we would like to assure all women that the safety and quality of our maternity services will remain our top priority and all women requiring care in labour on the day of strike action will not be adversely affected,” she said.

This is the first time in the college's 133-year history that members will go on strike but it is not know how many midwives working in Worcestershire are members of the organisation.

Its chief executive Cathy Warwick branded the government’s pay decision “not acceptable”.

"Our members have suffered three years of pay restraint and face the prospect that their pay in 2016 will only be one per cent higher than it was in 2010,” she said.

But she reassured women expecting a baby that midwives would still be on hand to look after them.

A Department of Health spokesman said: "NHS staff are our greatest asset, and we've increased the NHS budget to pay for thousands more clinical staff since 2010, including more than 1,700 more midwives.

“We want to protect these increases and cannot afford a pay rise on top of increments - which disproportionately reward the highest earners - without risking frontline jobs."

"We remain keen to meet with the unions to discuss how we can work together to make the NHS pay system fairer."