Praise lavished on baby unit despite imminent threat to services

Around six in 10 also expressed concern about having to give birth in a busy city hospital setting away from the relaxed more personal service provided at St Mary’s and many wanted to retain the option of a smaller standalone midwife-led unit.

But Leicester Leicestershire and Rutland Integrated Care Board (LLR ICB) will be recommended to cease births and inpatient post-natal services at the Melton birth centre when it meets today (Thursday).

The services will, if approved, be relocated to the Leicester General Hospital although the health board says it no longer has the funding to set up a similar standalone midwife-led unit as originally promised.

The recommendation is based on feedback from the six-week engagement, which attracted 231 responses, focus groups, one-to-one interviews, written submissions and statistical analysis which highlights a low number of births at the unit and fragile staffing issues there.

Births and inpatient post-natal care was paused there for six months from last July and those services have not resumed since.

The impact of pausing those services on respondents to the engagement was clear to see with 95 per cent saying they were emotionally and practically impacted with 72 per cent saying this was a significant impact.

On the quality of care delivered at St Mary’s, the report states: “People repeatedly said they felt looked after, listened to, and never left on their own. The environment itself mattered a great deal.

"People described the birth rooms and post-natal ward as calm, quiet and homely, which helped them stay relaxed during labour and in the early days with their baby.”

Respondents also mentioned the valuable breast-feeding support they received after giving birth, sometimes ‘hour-by-hour’ help.

On the prospect of having to give birth in Leicester instead, the report states: “People worried about longer journeys, especially at night, in labour, or with limited childcare. Parking at acute hospital sites was also raised as an issue.”

The report points out that there were 92 births at St Mary’s for the year before services were paused, representing only one per cent of all babies born in the health authority area.

It states there has been ‘a steady long‑term decline’ in the number of births at the Melton unit over recent years.

Most births involved families living in Melton and surrounding villages and only nine per cent of women registered with the town’s Latham House Medical Practice had their baby at St Mary’s in the year before services paused, compared to 81 per cent at one of the city hospitals.

The report says it was unsafe to maintain births at St Mary’s, not due to the quality of service but because ‘around 30 per cent of the team was unavailable due to maternity leave, long-term sickness, or other planned absences’ prior to July’s pause.

The Melton baby unit offered a 24-hour service, with two birthing rooms and seven post-natal beds.

If the health board approves the recommendation to cease births and inpatient post-natal care at St Mary’s, it pledges that ante-natal and post-natal clinics, home visiting and infant feeding support will continue as well as access to the home birthing team.