Maternity overhaul to cost £1.85m

An overhaul of maternity services which will see all births moved out of Sandwell Hospital will cost almost £2 million to implement, the Express & Star can reveal.

Plans for a temporary transfer of services to City Hospital in Birmingham until the new super-hospital opens in Smethwick in 2015/16 received the most support following a consultation on three proposals. The changes will start from January next year.

The plans are set to be officially backed by Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust Board this Thursday, where members will also be asked to approve capital investment of £1.85 million to allow work to go ahead.

As part of the plans all consultant-led care, inpatient services and births will move to City Hospital from the end of this year and a stand alone midwifery-led birth centre will be created in Sandwell.

Once operational some midwifery-led low risk births will relocate to the new centre in Sandwell and all neonatal care will be provided at City Hospital.

On Thursday the trust board meeting at Sandwell Hospital for its monthly meeting will be asked to agree the business case for the project, approve the preferred option and approve the capital and revenue investment.

If accepted there will be a further discussion with the Joint Health Scrutiny Committee on March 3 before any changes are made.

The board will also ask to receive a detailed implementation plan at its May meeting.

A report to the trust board states that the £1.85 million will cover the cost of creating the additional capacity at City Hospital and to relocate remaining offices and outpatient based clinical services from the existing women's building at Sandwell Hospital.

John Adler, chief executive of Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust, said: "We have been working hard to improve maternity services for local pregnant women and have already made some significant improvements to the quality and safety of the service.

"However, we know we cannot continue to improve the service while it is provided on two different sites.

"The changes we are recommending will mean we can develop a truly high quality service, with specialist expertise available to women from both Birmingham and Sandwell and more choice and better facilities for women with low-risk pregnancies.

"We are supporting the option local people preferred as we believe this provides the most choice for women, even though it will cost more than the other options. Our priority is to ensure we continue to improve our services, providing a safe and high quality service for local women and their babies."

The changes will not be implemented until January 2011 at the earliest and women will be able to give birth to their babies at Sandwell Hospital until then. They can also choose to go to the new midwifery-led unit at City Hospital which opens next month.