Trust Board Febuary 2010 - Sandwell & West Birmingham Hospitals

SWBTB (2/10) 035 (a)
Appendix 5
Comments from the Right Care Right Here Partnership Board to on the Medium
Term Maternity services Review
• There was general support for the proposals in the consultation document, requiring the
rationalization of maternity services, with the consolidation of the majority of services
onto one hospital site.
• The presentation and options clearly indicate that City Hospital will be the site where
this consolidation occurs and members felt that there was insufficient detail to explain
why this could not occur on the Sandwell Hospital site, particularly in view of the fact
that for the immediate term, there will still need to be a level of provision at the
Sandwell site. It was suggested that this could be presented as a two stage presentation,
in which the first identifies the need for better provision for high risk pregnancies and
the second delineates the arguments for and against the City and Sandwell sites.
• The Questions and Answers section had no reference to some of the issues raised in the
past, in particular there was no detail relating to the Users Survey in 2007 which
indicated that the service was judged to be ‘least well performing’ and that service users
were unhappy about the quality of care provided. It was also felt that it was legitimate
to be open about the demographics of the user population with particularly a growing
younger population in Heart of Birmingham, which would make consolidation at City a
sensible option.
• It was suggested that you may also wish to consult with the education and training
providers about the implications for the need for trained staff arising from the options.
• It was noted that the suggestion to extend the consultation response period because of
postal strikes should be balanced by the need to complete the consultation prior to any
potential general election purdah.
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