Musgrove Park maternity staff given weather forecast due to leaking roof
Baroness Amos review found the unit was "not designed to deliver 21st-century care"
Doctors and nurses at one of Somerset's main hospitals are provided with a weather forecast during their daily handover, because the roof leaks so regularly.
Taunton and Wellington MP Gideon Amos and senior NHS figures in Somerset have been repeatedly lobbying the Department for Health and Social Care to bring forward improvements to Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton, including a brand new maternity unit.
Much of the hospital estate still dates back to the Second World War, with old buildings making it difficult for patients to attend appointments and for staff to work safely and productively.
The hospital's chief operating officer has disclosed that the roof of the maternity unit leaks so much that staff are provided with a weather forecast when they start their shifts.
The Care Quality Commission most recently inspected the Musgrove maternity unit and related services in February, before Yeovil Hospital's special care baby unit reopened in April, giving it a rating of "requires improvement".
A separate review by Baroness Valerie Amos found the maternity unit was "not designed to deliver 21st-century care", and that the service being provided to patients was "inconsistent, poorly coordinated, slow to respond and too often dismissive of their concerns".
Leanne Ashmead, director of children, young people and families at the Somerset NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the acute hospitals in Taunton and Yeovil along with a wide range of other services, addressed the issue at length when the council's adults, health and housing scrutiny committee met in Bridgwater on 8th October.
She said part of the trust's "improvement journey has been about creating a sense of a Somerset-wide services, that people aren't working in silos, and are working across both the Taunton and Yeovil sites".
"We know that recruitment is difficult, and we have felt it very deeply. We had a very big recruitment drive last year and had lots of applicants; by next year, we will have six new paediatricians starting in Yeovil," Ms Ashmead said.
"We are never complacent about the things that we still need to work on. There is an awful lot of pride among the staff in those buildings," she said.
Musgrove was one of 40 hospitals identified for improvements by 2030, under the "new hospitals programme" announced by then-prime minister Boris Johnson in 2020.
The current Labour government carried out a review of the programme after the 2024 general election, with Musgrove's improvements being delayed until 2033 as part of a wider move to stabilise NHS spending.
In addition to delays surrounding the maternity unit, the decision has led to other upgrades being postponed, including the delivery of a second multi-storey car park to provide additional spaces for patients and staff.
Andy Heron, the trust's chief operating officer, said the scrutiny committee "has previously been extremely supportive of the challenges we face with the quality of some of our estate".
"We were one of the 12 trusts that was involved in the Baroness Amos inquiry. We think that was because of the temporary closure of Yeovil's maternity services at the time, rather than high mortality rates or other campaigns that have come to national attention," Mr Heron said.
"Baroness Amos referred to ours as the worst maternity estate in England - it is official now," he said.
"Thank you for everything you have done to campaign on our behalf. We don't have great news on that, but the campaign goes on and we'll keep chipping away at that," Mr Heron said.
"It's amazing what staff achieve there given the constraints of the estate," he said.
"The morning handover meetings between doctors and nurses includes the weather forecast, because in spite of endless works on the roof we do get leaks regularly in our maternity unit," Mr Heron said.