'Local maternity services must be protected from budget cuts', says RCM

The RCM has urged commissioners in Hull to find a solution to re-open its Jubilee Birth Centre, which will close today. The centre in Cottingham, East Yorkshire, is the only midwife-led unit in the region.

Its closure follows an unannounced visit last month by the Care Quality Commission, which found that the centre failed to comply with regulations on safe staffing levels. 

In a statement, Phil Morley, chief executive at Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS trust confirmed that the trust could not currently guarantee enough qualified midwifery cover for each birth at the unit.
 
‘The Jubilee Birth Centre is currently well staffed but due to recurrent staff sickness issues and its remote location – away from the main unit – it is not possible for us to guarantee that it can be staffed safely. Due to the financial losses already being incurred at the centre we simply cannot afford to employ more midwives just to keep this facility open.

‘As a consequence we have no option other than to close the unit from 5.00 pm on Friday 29 July 2011,’ he said.

The Hull Daily Mail newspaper reported that the trust's maternity service is running at a loss of £1.5m per year, including £120,000 at the Jubilee Birth Centre.

Mr Morley added that the trust is reviewing its maternity services strategy and will be discussing the future of the Jubilee Birth Centre at a board meeting in September. 

‘As soon as the maternity strategy has been reviewed by the trust board we will re-consider this position,’ he said.

In the interim, mothers in East Yorkshire will now have to give birth at Hull and East Yorkshire Women and Children's Hospital at the Hull Royal Infirmary site, or opt for a home birth.

Commenting on the news of the closure, the RCM’s director for England Jacque Gerrard said: ‘The RCM sympathises and acknowledges that the primary care trust is caught up in the middle of NHS cuts to save £20bn, however, a pledge was made by the government that frontline services would not be impacted by these cuts.


‘The RCM is concerned that high-quality maternity services, such as the MLU Jubilee Birth Centre is an example of frontline services being cut in an effort to meet NHS cost-cutting. Our plea to commissioners who are holding the purse strings for funding maternity services in Hull and at the NHS trust is that whilst the unit is closed to try to come up with a reasonable solution or plan to re-open the Jubilee Birth Centre in a safe way.’

She added: ‘We need to protect local maternity services and keep low-risk women who don’t need medical interventions during childbirth to be cared for by low-cost, midwife-led services in Hull.’

The RCM will be working with staff and management at the centre with the aim of re-opening the unit.