Damning report on Britain's overcrowded and understaffed maternity services.

Maternity services report: Key points
Article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"Inadequate numbers of midwives to provide one to one care for women in labour and women are left alone too often.

Consultants not present on the wards often enough with a senior doctor available for just 10 hours a week in some units when they should be there for 40 or 60 hours depending on the number of births.

There were too few beds and bathrooms, particularly on labour wards with only one in six having one bath per delivery room and one third having one shower per room."

Worsening situation for NHS maternity care

NHS maternity care 'is in crisis' - Telegraph

Extract:

"Fears over the standard of NHS services for expectant mothers were heightened last night after it emerged that the number of maternity beds has fallen by up to 40 per cent in some regions.

David Cameron, the Conservative leader, released new figures yesterday suggesting that Labour was presiding over a lack of midwives and a crisis in maternity services in England.

Mr Cameron, who visited a hospital near his Oxfordshire constituency, promised a "bare-knuckle fight" with Gordon Brown over the future of the health service.

A few months ago, the Tories said 43 maternity units had either already shut or were at risk of closing as NHS trusts tried to balance their books.

But yesterday, Mr Cameron, who is waging a summer fight-back to cut the Prime Minister's opinion poll lead, published new figures showing widespread falls in the provision of maternity beds.

The information, obtained from a parliamentary answer, said that since Labour came to power in 1997, there had been an 18 per cent reduction in the number of maternity beds for every 100,000 people - equivalent to almost 2,000 beds in the past 10 years.

But in some strategic health authority areas, the drop was much more dramatic with reductions of 40 per cent in north-west London and South Yorkshire."

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Is there a crisis in Britain's maternity care?

The Big Question: Why is there a crisis in maternity care, and should parents be worried? - Independent

Extract:

"The Royal College of Midwives says the shortage of staff and facilities on labour wards has reached "crisis" point. The Royal College of Obstetricians has warned of a lack of skilled obstetricians and a looming recruitment crisis as the number of UK medical graduates choosing obstetrics has halved in a decade. On Wednesday, MPs demanded urgent action to address the problem in a Commons debate. A BBC Panorama programme broadcast this week, filmed undercover in two hospitals in north London and Manchester, claimed wards were buckling under the midwife shortage."

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NHS foundation trust has backed down over plans to close a midwife-led maternity unit

Protests force U-turn on maternity unit closure - Guardian

Extract:

"As revealed in the Guardian, Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Trust had said it would have to shut the rural Darley Dale unit in Matlock, north Derbyshire, because, with just 120 babies born there each year, it was losing £312,000 annually.

But the decision meant heavily pregnant women would have to travel for up to an hour along country roads to give birth. The closure also flew in the face of plans announced by the health secretary, Patricia Hewitt, to allow every woman the choice of a home, hospital or midwife-led birth by 2009.

The same recommendations were made by the maternity tsar Dr Sheila Shribman, and are set to be made by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (Nice).

The plan to permanently close the unit - which has been temporarily closed since the autumn - prompted 5,500 local people and the commissioning primary care trust to protest when it was announced as non-negotiable in a consultation document on revamping maternity services.

Today the trust bowed to this pressure - and to the threat, by the Maintain Our Maternity Services (Moms) campaign group, to seek a judicial review over the handling of the consultation."


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More choice in NHS maternity services promised by 2009

Hewitt promises more choice for expectant mothers by end of 2009 - Guardian

Extracts:

"By the end of 2009, every pregnant woman in England will be guaranteed the full range of choices about how and where to give birth, Patricia Hewitt, the health secretary, promised yesterday.

She committed the government to a drastic improvement in NHS maternity services, but could not say how many extra midwives would be needed or how much the fuller service would cost.

She told health authorities and trusts to work out the details and make decisions about how many hospitals would have to close maternity departments as consultant-led services are consolidated into fewer hi-tech specialist centres."

"Ms Hewitt claimed every NHS facility was safe. But she said inequalities across England were "shocking". Women living in families where both partners were unemployed were 20 times more likely to die in labour. Single mothers were three times more likely to die and women living in deprived areas 45% more likely."

"Dame Karlene Davis, general secretary of the Royal College of Midwives, warned that the NHS would have to recruit 1,000 extra fulltime midwives by 2009 and 3,000 by 2012 to implement the strategy. Andrew Lansley, the Conservative shadow health secretary, said Ms Hewitt had failed to reconcile her promises with closures or cutbacks at 43 maternity services and an increasing shortage of midwives."