Maternity services suspended at Westmorland General’s Helme-Chase unit

Due to staffing issues, birthing services at Helme Chase are temporarily suspended for a period of six months.

The midwife-led unit at Westmorland General Hospital in Kendal cares for around two births a month and has experienced significant staffing problems in recent months.

Sue Stansfield, Interim Director of Midwifery, UHMBT, said: “Protecting our women, pregnant people and colleagues and keeping them safe must be our top priority.”

“We no longer have the number of midwives available overnight and at weekends to safely staff the department and have on-call status – despite ongoing recruitment work to fill vacancies. For this reason, we are making the difficult decision to temporarily suspend maternity services on the unit for a period of six months.

“This period will allow us to provide safe home births and maternity services in our other two units, whilst also working with maternity teams to review the way we deploy our colleagues across the trust. The aim is to develop a new way of working that ensures we provide a safe, high quality service to our local communities, whilst supporting and developing our teams.

“While birth rates at Helme Chase are low, we recognize that this will impact a small number of women and pregnant people who may have chosen to give birth on the unit. We will contact anyone who may be affected directly to discuss their decisions.

While maternity services are temporarily suspended, prenatal and postnatal care and outpatient appointments at Helme Chase will continue as usual.

The trust’s home birth service and consultant-led birth services at Furness General Hospital and Royal Lancaster Infirmary will remain unchanged.

Sue concluded: “We recognize that this may be a concern for women or pregnant people and would encourage anyone who would like to have further discussions to speak to their nominated midwife, Community Matron or Pregnant Neonatal Voices Partnership.”[email protected].”

Janet Gorry, director of the Bay-Wide Pregnant and Neonatal Voices Partnership, said: “While we understand the difficult decision the trust has made; At a time when birthing women and their families are most at risk, the priority must be on providing high quality, safe care.

“We appreciate that the Trust will be contacting those directly affected and we are available as your local independent Maternity and Newborn Voice Partnership should anyone wish to contact us with their views and experiences.”