Red alert over baby death rate

A RED warning has been given to a Scots health board which recorded one of the highest rates of stillbirths and newborn deaths in Britain.

NHS Grampian had a rate more than 10 per cent above the UK average, a report found.

A table compiled for the NHS put the trust in the UK’s bottom ten for babies stillborn or dying in the first four weeks of life, although the results may be affected by the small number of births in the Grampian area.

The finding has prompted calls for more midwifery funding, amid warnings about rural recruiting problems.

The Perinatal Mortality Surveillance Report, which is released today and records figures from 2014, also highlights the raised risk of complications for babies of ageing or obese mothers. Gillian Smith, director of the Royal College of Midwives in Scotland, said: ‘Any red warnings are definitely concerning and we should be looking at this.

‘There is no lack of energy to recruit in Grampian, but there have been some problems in recruiting. There is difficulty recruiting in remote and rural areas.’

NHS Grampian had 328 vacancies for midwives and seven in neonatal care, according to the most recent figures.

The board’s rate of deaths for babies under 28 days old was the UK’s seventh highest, prompting MBRRACE-UK, which compiles the figures, to demand an urgent review of its care of women having babies.

Scotland cut its overall stillbirth rate by 15 per cent between 2010 and 2015 to 3.6 stillbirths per 1,000 births. But Judith Abela, acting chief executive of stillbirth and neonatal death charity Sands, said: ‘It’s clear variations in care across the UK persist.’

An NHS Grampian spokesman said it had ‘implemented a number of changes’ to reduce stillbirths, adding: ‘Our figures for 2014, highlighted in this report, show a reduction from 2013 and our local data suggests there was a further reduction in 2015.’

A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘We are committed to doing everything we can to prevent avoidable deaths.’