£2m centre to ensure babies WiLL still be born in salford
RENOVATED CARE HOME TO REPLACE HOSPITAL UNIT WHEN IT SHUTS
A DEAL has been struck to ensure that women can still have their babies at an NHS unit in Salford.
A former care home is to be transformed at a cost of £2m into a new birth centre – with the help of the public and the city’s millionaires.
It will replace one at Salford Royal which is due to close on September 30. A 200-year-old former residential care home, known as Ingleside in Oakwood Park, Swinton, will be refurbished to become a midwifeled unit.
It will be run by Bolton Foundation Trust, which manages Bolton Royal Hospital, and 300 babies are expected to be delivered there each year. The trust already provides community midwife services in Salford. The new centre is scheduled to open on October 1st and is the latest twist in a long-running saga over the city’s maternity services.
Its running costs will be funded by NHS Salford Clinical Commissioning Group, which is also supplying £1m for the building to be kitted out to handle low-risk pregnancies.
Salford council, which owns the building, will provide £2m for the refurbishment, and is hoping to raise another £1m in public donations, starting with a drive to raise £65,000 in three months. City Mayor, Paul Dennett, said: “I think it’s important that babies are still born in Salford, because people see themselves as Salfordians, and Salford is a city in its own right. The city has a really strong history in terms of working class traditions. At the very heart of that is the notion of a family. Having babies born within the city
is absolutely critical to that. People in Salford are proud of their roots. The new birthing centre will replicate what we have at Salford Royal.
“It will be a midwife-led unit. Complex births will not be taking place there. They will be at places where they have paediatric and obstetrics services – exactly the same sort of arrangement that we have now with Salford Royal.”
The decision to relocate from Salford Royal is also part of a wider plan for the hospital to become Greater Manchester’s stroke hyper-acute centre and a regional trauma centre.
Mr Dennett said: “This is a citywide campaign. We will be seeking donations from wealthy Salfordians and any member of the public who feels passionate about babies being born in Salford.
“There has been a long history about this issue back to 2007 when it was first announced the city was losing its paediatrics and obstetrics.
“I feel there is a will on behalf of the public to support this. We are lis- tening to the public and responding with what are really good solutions.”
Ingleside was is the former home of Major E F Pilkington JP, of the glassmaking family, and was one of three houses presented by him to the Salford Corporation in 1936.
You can donate to the appeal via http://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/salfordbirth-centre.