Concerns midwives may face more travel under maternity service changes
A meeting was held
Midwives may have to do a lot more travelling around the county under new plans to change maternity services in Gloucestershire.
Hospital chiefs are working to safely reopen the maternity unit in Cheltenham and restore the county’s home births service later this year.
The maternity unit at Cheltenham General Hospital was closed temporarily due to safety concerns in April 2022 while home births were also suspended last November.
This lack of choice for mothers over the last four years has been a source of great frustration.
Civic chiefs were told today (May 26) how Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust bosses aim to fix this issue by changing the maternity services model in the county.
However, under the new plans which incolve an on-demand service for Cheltenham and Stroud, midwives may have to do a lot more travelling.
Under the proposed changes, staff would not be stationed at the maternity unit in Stroud or the Aveta Birth Centre. But would be there when women need to give birth.
Medical director Mark Pietroni explained how the new system would work at a Gloucestershire County Council meeting today (May 26).
He said there would be three midwives on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week with one extra midwife who could be called in from the hospital in Gloucester.
He said this model is scalable and should the number of births increase they could recruit more staff.
Councillor Paul Hodgkinson (LD, Bourton-on-the-Water and Northleach) said it would be very welcome news if Cheltenham does reopen in the autumn.
But he said staff would have a lot of travelling around the county and raised concerns that Stroud’s post natal care beds will not be opening as part of these short term plans.
The meeting heard how the post-natal care beds would be considered as part of the NHS medium to long term plans for maternity services in Gloucestershire.
“This has been a temporary change which has been four years plus,” Cllr Hodginkson said when referring to the maternity unit closure in the spa town.
However, he said the delivery of it is now important and asked how staff are being consulted.
“We must listen to NHS workers,” he said. “We must understand what they are feeling about this. What they think.
“It sounds like, under the new model, they will have quite a lot of travel around the county, is that correct?”
He added that it was really important to get the services up and running as soon as possible “but it is really important that it is safe, that is the driving force behind everything.”
Mr Pietroni agreed that services must be safe he confirmed the plan is to reopen in the autumn and acknowledged that four years is “not temporary in most people’s minds”.
He also said they must listen to their midwives.
“We don’t control where people live in the county,” he said. “And so midwives may have to travel. They also may live nearby.”
He said one of the real advantages of the model is it operates in almost all other parts of England and they could learn from other rural areas.
Civic chiefs also heard how maternity services have changed in recent years with the complexity of births increasing.
Councillors were told the three key issues the service is facing are rising levels of complexity, inequalities in access to care, outcomes and experience, as well as resource constraints.
The current workforce model and facility are not designed to meet the changing needs of women, health chiefs said.
These issues have increased costs significantly without the same improvement outcomes and the trust says this needs to be addressed while ensuring financial sustainability.
Earlier in the meeting Marie Croft, chief nursing officer, said there is a need to improve performance and population needs and case complexity have changed.
“The current model we’ve got for maternity services is not fit for purpose,” she added
And Helen Ford, programme director for maternity, echoed Ms Croft’s comments.
“What we are seeing is greater demand,” she said and women “want to see more continuity in their care.”