Wycombe birthing warning as maternity services are reborn (From Bucks Free Press)

Wycombe birthing warning as maternity services are reborn

12:36pm Friday 9th October 2009 in

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MUMS have been told to “use or lose” the last remaining birthing services at Wycombe Hospital ahead of the axing of doctor-led births.

Maternity boss Celina Eves said more mums-to-be must use the midwife-led birthing centre when doctor-led births leave the hospital on October 19 or it could close.

At the moment the unit – for low risk births – takes 150 births a year but needs 450 to get enough cash from NHS paymasters to keep running.

She spoke as the Bucks Free Press was given a tour of a revamped maternity unit at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, Aylesbury, where many mums will now have to go.

She said: “We really need to use it or lose it.”

Hospitals+NHS+Trust">Buckinghamshire Hospitals NHS Trust’s board has given her team “till next year to try and up the numbers”. It is facings it worse cash crisis in years.

“If we don’t then we don’t know what will happen,” she said.

Mrs Eves, the trust’s head of midwifery, said the unit was currently under-used as women would opt to move to Stoke Mandeville’s doctor-led unit if they needed pain relief.

But she said she expected more women to use this facility when they no longer have the choice to see a doctor at Wycombe.

She said: “The women do want it, it has been proven at other hospitals that we can do that.”

Dr Ian Currie, a consultant in obstetrics and gynaecology, said the facility needed to be marketed to women, particularly those on their second child or more, as these births are more l ikely to be complication free.

There has been concern about the safety of such units as women who need a doctor and incubator babies need to be rushed to a consultant-led unit.

Dr Currie said research showed 11 to 13 per cent of births from midwife led centres would need a doctor and this was often because a woman asked for pain relief.

He said maternity services at Wycombe and Stoke were “extremely safe”. He said: “We are not going on one poor site and one good one.”

Instead the changes, first mooted in 2004 to outcry from Free Press readers, were needed to ensure there were enough staff on the rota, he said. EU laws had cut doctors’ hours, he added.

The new system moves all maternity overnight care from Wycombe, meaning the special care baby unit will be axed. Overnight children’s and gynaecological care also moves.

Yet Dr Currie said he thought the journey to Aylesbury would not put off parents-to-be and many were already choosing to come to Stoke instead of Wycombe.

Mums can also choose other hospitals, such as Wexham Park in Slough.

He said: “Women these days will look at the facilities involves, they don’t necessarily look at the time travelled. It is car Parking and hospital facilities and what these have to offer.”

Parking at Stoke Mandeville was “very easy” he said. “I do it every day,” he added.

The refurbished Stoke unit, in the Claydon wing, has all single delivery rooms for doctor births, which have all been made en suite. A bereavement room has also been established.

Also, four dedicated intensive care rooms for mums have been set up. Before, women had to go to general intensive care at Wycombe and Stoke.

Three rooms house 24 incubators, taking Wycombe’s 13 and Stoke’s 11. Only pregnancies of 27 weeks and over will be taken at the hospital, known as a level 2 unit.

Nikki Adlington, 21, was the first to give birth in the new-look unit, to Megan, who needed intensive care after being delivered 10 weeks early and weighing 3lb6oz.

The first-time mum, from Leighton Buzzard, said: “It is lovely here, it is well equipped.”