‘Close 1 in 5 maternity units to get safer care’
ONE in five hospital maternity units should close to ensure mothers and babies receive safer care, a leading doctor warned yesterday.
Dr David Richmond claimed staff were ‘stretched too thinly’.
The president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists said it was ‘common sense’ to concentrate their medical expertise at fewer hospitals.
He said there was a shortfall of up to 30 per cent of middle-grade maternity doctors – those between junior doctors and consultants.
Maternity units are under growing pressure from a baby boom and an increase in the number of older and obese women, who need more care.
It emerged last month that half of hospitals had closed their doors to women in labour in the past year because they were so busy. Dr Richmond said: ‘Are there enough obstetric doctors? In practice, no.
‘If we work with the number of bodies we’ve got it makes common sense to maximise your expertise in a smaller number of units. But I suspect that’s probably only reducing them by maybe 20 per cent.’
This would take the number from 147 to just 118 larger units.
Critics claim this would lead to the creation of ‘baby factories’.
Following the scandal at University Hospitals Morecambe Bay in Cumbria, where 30 babies and mothers died needlessly over a decade, the NHS is to publish a review of maternity services setting out how they can be safer.
Dr Richmond told the Guardian: ‘Medics are stretched too thinly and the clinical quality of care could be better.’
Tory MP Dr Daniel Poulter, an obstetrician and former health minister, said: ‘The heavy toll of nights, antisocial hours, and increasing litigation has made burnout among middle-grade maternity doctors more common.
‘As the safety of women and babies is a maternity doctor’s priority, David Richmond is making the only recommendation he can to ensure patient safety.’
NHS England said its review would assess how to deal with the ‘growing birth rate and the need for well-staffed and safe services that give mums more say’.