Covid jabs could be offered at antenatal clinics

Health bosses running hospital services in Stoke on Trent, Stafford, Burton and Derby are considering ways to make it easier for pregnant women to access jabs.

Expectant mothers have been offered the vaccine in line with other people in their age group since April. But national data released at the end of July revealed that 98 per cent of pregnant women who had been hospitalised with the virus had not received a jab.

The impact of Covid on mums-to-be was highlighted during a discussion of the area’s maternity services at Monday’s Staffordshire County Council health scrutiny committee meeting.

Alison Budd, lead midwife for the area’s maternity transformation programme, said: “The Delta variant is having more of an impact on our pregnant women than the previous variants have. If you’re pregnant and haven’t been vaccinated you are three times more likely to be admitted to intensive care if you catch Covid.”

Jane Moore from Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent CCGs (Clinical Commissioning Groups) told the meeting that patients with Covid-19 in critical care had included two pregnant women during the past week.

Committee member Councillor Phil Hewitt asked how the area’s hospitals managed the admission of women who had not been vaccinated

Patricia Paine, director of midwifery at University Hospitals of Derby and Burton (UHDB) NHS Foundation Trust, responded: “We have done a lot of work regarding our communications to pregnant ladies and we have reinforced that over the last couple of weeks through our community midwives giving face to face advice. The current advice is that all pregnant women should have the Covid vaccination.

“We are planning to introduce Covid vaccinations in our antenatal clinic at our site. We’re meeting with our senior team here that manage the staff hub vaccinations so we’re looking at the feasibility of setting that up.

“Whilst we can signpost women towards community hubs we’re not confident that uptake will be to the level we need it to be. We have seen a number of very poorly ladies coming through our unit so we’re doing everything we can to encourage vaccination.”

Lynn Dudley, interim head of midwifery at University Hospitals of North Midlands (UHNM) NHS Trust, said: “We are still very much in the Covid pandemic, we are still seeing a significant increase in the women that are admitted to our intensive care unit that have not been vaccinated. A colleague of mine did a radio interview in relation to the importance of having the Covid vaccine and the safety around that.

“We too are exploring implementing a pop-up vaccine clinic and we have had conversations about vaccinating the women at our community hubs and centres, taking the service to the women.

“Of the five women we have had in our intensive care unit over the last couple of weeks none of them had been vaccinated so we’ve got some work to do in maternity services. We are doing everything we possibly can.”

Councillor Hewitt said: “That’s fantastic that there is a real encouragement for ladies to take the vaccine.”