09 February 2007
The NHS must recruit many more consultant obstetricians and thousands of midwives to ensure a major shake-up in maternity services delivers better patient care, experts said this week.
They were responding to a report from the Department of Health's national clinical director for children, young people and maternity services, Sheila Shribman, who said that by 2009 women should be offered the option of giving birth at home, in a local midwife-led hospital unit or in a consultant-led regional unit.
This would inevitably lead to the downgrading or closure of some maternity departments, but Shribman insisted her proposals were not about recouping deficits.
She said: 'Delivering the best possible services for all women and their babies will mean that changes will have to take place. This is about changing and improving services, not closures or cuts, but sometimes it will mean difficult decisions.'
Labour's 2005 general election manifesto pledged to increase the expectant mothers' choices.
But Shaughn O'Brien, vice president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said more staff would be needed.
He said: 'These aspirations require a combination of reconfiguration and expansion in the number of consultant obstetricians, midwives and other specialists, to ensure a safe environment in the delivery ward.'
The Royal College of Midwives' general secretary Dame Karlene Davis backed the report but insisted investment in services and recruitment of up to 10,000 more midwives was needed to get the plans off the ground.
'Unfortunately, too many recent reconfigurations have led to midwifery care units being threatened with closure, thereby reducing the amount of choice women are able to exercise.'
The calls for more investment came as it was revealed that the government's pledge to build 50 new community hospitals, billed as bringing treatment closer to patients, has been shelved.
Health minister Andy Burnham, responding to a parliamentary question tabled by Conservative MP Tony Baldry asking how many of the 50 would be built, said there was 'no target on the number…we intend to fund'.
PFfeb2007
