Trust Board Febuary 2010 - Sandwell & West Birmingham Hospitals

SWBTB (2/10) 045 (a)
of 18 months. Establishing the stand alone Birth Centre without these skills is clinically
unacceptable.
The Project Steering Group however recognise the concerns raised by the Joint Health Scrutiny
Committee and consider it important to minimise the time between reconfiguring consultant led/high risk
births to City Hospital and opening the stand alone Birth Centre in Sandwell but without delaying the
reconfiguration of consultant led/high risk births. The Project Steering Group is therefore recommending
further detailed work to analyse and undertake an option appraisal as soon as possible that:
• Enables the reconfiguration of consultant led/high risk births as soon as the additional capacity at
City Hospital is open (after the refurbishment work outlined above) – this is forecast to be
between January and April 2011.
• Enables the development of a team of midwives with the required skills and experience to run
the stand alone Birth Centre in Sandwell. This will involve developing these skills and experience
through midwives working in the co-located Birth Centre at City Hospital for 18 months after it
opens, as well as recruiting additional midwives – this is therefore forecast to be October 2011.
• Identifies a location in Sandwell and completes any refurbishment work required for the stand
alone Birth Centre as far as possible in line with the development of a team of midwives (as
above).
• In working to minimise the time between reconfiguring consultant led/high risk births to City
Hospital and opening the stand alone Birth Centre in Sandwell it will be necessary to consider a
number of options including existing health accommodation that has some spare clinical capacity
or where this can easily be created. From the Trust’s perspective if this involves one of the
Trust’s existing sites there is likely to be an additional (to the financial analysis for Option 3 as it
currently stands) capital cost of around £1.5 million and associated additional revenue costs (i.e.
additional capital charges and facilities costs). In pursuing this approach it will be necessary to
undertake a robust option appraisal looking at the advantages and risks of each location as well
as costs, feasibility and timescales.
The aim of this approach would be to safely minimise the period when Sandwell women would not have
an option of giving birth in Sandwell (other than at home) i.e. between reconfiguration of consultant
led/high risk births to City Hospital and opening of the stand alone Birth Centre in Sandwell. While any
gap is undesirable, the Project Steering Group is clear that the priority must be the maintenance of the
maximum possible level of safety and quality.
16. DECISION MAKING PROCESS
The purpose of this section is to set out and clarify the decision making process associated with different
phases of the project.
16.1 Preferred Option
Sandwell PCT Board has the final decision to approve a preferred option for the medium term changes
to the way intra-partum (labour and birth) Midwifery and Consultant led care (ante-natal care, and care
during and immediately after birth) is provided by Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust
for the time period up to the opening of the new Acute Hospital in 2015/16. This decision will be based
upon the business case for change presented in this report .
In making this decision Sandwell PCT Board will need to take account of approval of the preferred
option by Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust Board through the business case being presented
at its meeting in February 2010.
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