Maternity units delivering fewer than 2,000 babies a year may need to close – report

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By Daniel Pye

Smaller maternity units delivering fewer than 2,000 babies a year might need to close because of staffing issues, NHS trust leaders have said.

These units, typically in rural or coastal areas, face difficulty in delivering safe patient care as trusts cannot recruit enough consultant obstetric, anaesthetic and neonatal staff to facilitate increasing numbers of caesarean sections, the NHS Alliance said.

Matthew Hopkins, the organisation’s director for acute care, told The Guardian that up to 20 maternity units will have to shut to ensure safe care and said centralising childbirth services into fewer hospitals was “inevitable”.

The alliance warned the case of North Devon District Hospital in Barnstaple, which has had to suspend birthing services as it could not guarantee women would consistently have access to senior medical support during labour, was “not a one-off”.

It called the current configuration of maternity care across England “not fit for purpose” as services struggle to ensure adequate staffing and availability of operating theatres and beds in old hospitals.