The Board received presentations from the Head of Maternity Programme, ELHCP providing an overview of the current position of maternity services and future planning across NE London Maternity Providers, and the Director of Midwifery, BHRUT outlining the context and position at Queen’s Hospital including birthing trends, numbers of women accessing the hospital maternity services who live outside the catchment boundaries, and how this is being addressed as a system.
The Board noted that the East London Local Maternity System (ELLMS) made up of NHS providers and commissioners of maternity services across NE London are undertaking a 4-month review until March 2020 looking at current and anticipated future demand and capacity across maternity and neonatal services in the region. This review will include engaging with local women to find out where and why they chose to give birth to give a greater understanding to the issues and so as to ensure that local women and babies have safe and high quality care, and that the local maternity and neonatal services workforce are supported to make this happen.
ELLMS undertook to brief the Board about the findings from the review at a future meeting.