2 January 2018

Full inpatient maternity services at Midwife Led Units in Bridgnorth, Ludlow and Oswestry reopened yesterday (Monday 1 January) following the temporary suspension of services earlier this year due to staffing shortages.

The reopened services include the delivery suites for birth and postnatal care wards.

Services are reopened following a successful recruitment programme, and the introduction of new ways of working for the midwifery team. This has been particularly around home births with an on-call arrangement which allows our midwives to be more flexible across the county.

We advise any woman who is due to give birth, and would like to give birth at Bridgnorth, Ludlow or Oswestry Midwife-Led Unit, to contact her midwife to discuss this.

The safety of women and babies using our maternity service continues to be our number one priority and as with all areas of our hospitals, we have contingency plans in place should we face unexpectedly high levels of demand or face further staff shortages in the future. Staffing levels are an important factor in delivering a high-quality, safe service for women and their babies and we continue to work to make sure we have the very best teams in the right place.

The following services have been reinstated:

  • Bridgnorth Midwife-Led Unit (inpatient services including the delivery suite for births and postnatal ward)
  • Ludlow Midwife-Led Unit (inpatient services including the delivery suite for births and postnatal ward)
  • Oswestry Midwife-Led Unit (inpatient services including the delivery suite for births and postnatal ward)

The reopening of inpatient maternity services in Bridgnorth, Ludlow and Oswestry is separate from our clinical commissioners’ proposal for a new service model for midwifery-led services across the county. The proposed new model has been approved for consultation by Shropshire Clinical Commissioning Group and now needs to go to Telford and Wrekin Clinical Commissioning Group for similar approval before a public consultation on the long-term pattern of maternity services in this area can begin.