Final decision on ‘relaunch’ of Yeovil maternity services expected in October
The unit closed in May due to concerns about “the safety, quality and fragility of the paediatric service”
Last updated 26th Sep 2025
A final decision on the “relaunch” of maternity services at Yeovil Hospital will be taken as early as October, Somerset health bosses have confirmed.
The Somerset NHS Foundation Trust temporarily closed the special care baby unit (SCBU) and inpatient maternity service at Yeovil Hospital on May 19, due to concerns about “the safety, quality and fragility of the paediatric service” on the site.
A three-month review into the closure was carried out in mid-August, with the trust indicating in mid-September that it was ” making good progress” with recruiting additional staff and planned to reopen both services as soon as possible.
The NHS Somerset integrated care board (ICB) has now confirmed that a further review will take place in October to “set some dates” for the reopening of these services.
A three-month review into the closure was carried out on August 14, chaired by NHS Somerset chief executive Jonathan Higman.
The review found that, since the closure, 90 additional births had taken place at Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton (whose maternity unit is in need of urgent repairs) and 96 additional births took place at Dorset County Hospital in Dorchester.
Officers said that “a small number” of additional births had taken place at both the Royal United Hospital in Bath and Salisbury District Hospital in Wiltshire, with “no increase” in the average rate of home births.
Chief nursing officer and director of operations Shelagh Meldrum told the ICB in Yeovil on Thursday morning (September 25): “There have been improvements in safety during this time; as our teams began to work together, it highlighted different ways of working and how we could fine-tune things.”
The trust said that there had been “no incidents identified where the negative outcome had been directly related to the temporary closure”, and that there had been “positive feedback” from people who had been due to give birth at Yeovil Hospital.
Ms Meldrum said that numerous options had been considered for a phased reopening of services, but these were deemed to not meet the necessary standards for patient safety.
She explained: “We have explored a planned Caesarean section service, where in effect, a service user may come in and have their baby on the understanding that there would be no SCBU available if it were required.
“That is a service which is used internationally for very, very remote places like islands, so it was not recommended that this was a safe option to explore in Somerset.
“We also looked at the option for a midwife-led unit, which would see a small amount of service users. It would take quite some time to get that set up, and it was felt that having such a unit stand alone in an acute hospital had risks.
“While we will continue to further explore that, it’s not recommended to implement that at this time.”
In order for the SCBU and inpatient maternity services to reopen, Ms Meldrum said numerous strict criteria had to be met – including the recruitment and retention of experienced paediatric consultants, and improved integration of paediatric teams across the trust.
She said: “There is a planned review in October where we anticipate we will be able to set some dates – which is what everybody is really waiting for.
“The recruitment is taking place, with staff preferred to be based at Yeovil while working as part of a cross-Somerset team.
“We’re describing a reopening, but it feels more like a relaunch.”