Health authority's birth centre public engagement dismissed by campaigners as 'tokenism'

Members of Save St Mary’s Birth Centre were angry that questions submitted to the latest meeting of the Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland Joint Health Committee were not properly debated.

Leicester Leicestershire and Rutland Integrated Care Board (LLR ICB) paused births and post-natal care at the Thorpe Road unit for six months last summer and it has no immediate plans to restore those services.

The ICB say it is not financially viable to keep services at St Mary’s due to low staffing levels and the number of births dropping to less than two a week.

However, local families and campaigners say the unit has a high CQC rating, it gives families more choice in the county and has been under-resourced and under-funded by the ICB.

A number of questions were posed by supporters at the LLR Joint Health Committee but they were unhappy that they were answered in writing and were not part of the debate.

Melton borough councillor Allen Thwaites, who is on the committee, said: “Despite the clear strength of public feeling on this issue, the meeting fell into shambles when it became evident that none of the questions submitted by the public, including mine, or their answers were going to be actually heard and taken into consideration.”

A statement released afterwards by Save St Mary’s Birth Centre stated: “Following Monday’s shambolic meeting of the Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland Joint Health Committee, it is abundantly clear that the ICB and UHL NHS Trust have no intention of saving any birthing or postnatal services at St Mary’s Birth Centre, and recent engagement activity has been an exercise in tokenism, at best.

“Sadly, what happened, only reinforces a sense that public voices are being ignored in this process."

Members of the committee were critical of the decision to pause services at St Mary’s with no real prospect of them being restored.

Among the issues they highlighted was that the original decision to relocate services away from St Mary’s was not supported by those consulted at the time, that decision was rushed through with inconsistent responses from the health authority and evidence that low-risk women have not always been offered the option of having their baby at the Melton unit, reinforcing suspicions that it wasn’t publicised widely enough.

A report made to the committee by the LLR ICB indicated that the aim was to relocate the Melton services to an existing midwifery-led maternity service at the Leicester General with a final decision to be made on March 19, unless it is decided to defer it for further engagement as the committee would like and which was welcomed by Save St Mary’s Birth Centre.

A spokesperson for LLR ICB said: “We are fully committed to open and transparent conversations and engagement with all those impacted by the current pause in services at St Mary’s.

"All comments submitted to the Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee have been answered in writing.

“As part of our engagement work, we are now reviewing all comments and recommendations made at the meeting to feed into the decision‑making process.”