New Plans are Being Made for Nottingham Maternity Services

The Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH) NHS Trust has announced its plans to merge services into one site as part of revamping its sites. It is likely that Nottingham’s maternity units could be moved to one hospital as part of plans to see some services relocated. This comes as the Trust is looking into the running of three of its sites.

It is expected that maternity, emergency and cancer services will move from City Hospital to the Queen’s Medical Centre (QMC). However, Jack Hawkins, whose child died in-utero after negligence by maternity staff, said just moving services would not address bigger issues.

The maternity services in Nottingham are currently being reviewed after being rated inadequate by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) . This review stems from reports that 46 babies suffered brain damage and 19 were stillborn between 2010 and 2020.

Mr Hawkins, who is part of a group of 80 parents taking part in the review said that moving the services to work closer is a great opportunity for teamwork between doctors and nurses but it will not solve the problem as he doesn’t see the geographical locations of the services as the issue.
He added that the biggest concern is to accept that they need to change their work approach and they are an inadequate service.

NHS Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) has launched a public survey for people to air their views about the plans for the QMC, City Hospital and Ropewalk House. It said it was a great opportunity for people to put in their quota to help shape their health and care services.

The plans known as “Tomorrow’s NUH”, are part of the government’s New Hospital Programme which could see the three hospital locations revamped and new buildings built.

‘More To Do’

In the NUH report, they said that presently there are some duplication of services across its two large hospital sites adding that its ageing estate is a setback for them to deliver modern healthcare in a way they would like. They believe that they can improve healthcare by reorganizing their hospitals.

A spokesperson for the trust said; “We are currently working hard to make improvements to our maternity services in response to concerns raised by regulators, and we know that there is still a lot more to do. At the same time, the Covid-19 pandemic has meant that many patients are having to wait longer than they should for planned operations.”

In light of this, they believe that bringing maternity services to the QMC as well as moving services to the City Hospital are priorities which will bring the needed improvements and have the biggest impact on their patients. The online survey is open until 1 April.

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