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Smethwick baby unit to be axed after just six years

A maternity unit is to close after just 17 babies were born there in a year – instead of the 400 that bosses expected.

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The Halcyon Birth Centre in Smethwick

Sandwell and West Birmingham Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) took the decision to shut the Halcyon Birth Centre in Smethwick after it failed to meet its annual target of 400 births.

The unit is now expected to close in October – just six years after it opened.

Andy Williams, accounting officer for the CCG, said the Halcyon was initially expected to handle hundreds of births each year – but women had overwhelmingly chosen to have their babies at the Serenity Unit at City Hospital due to specialist support services on the same site.

He said the trust wanted to avoid a ‘faux’ consultation process when there was only one real choice and added: “I think people have already made a choice and it’s clear what those choices are.”

Councillors were told the unit costs £200,000 a year to run and the CCG was keen to see how it could use the building on Nine Leasowes to support other healthcare services in the borough.

The decision was approved by Sandwell Council’s health and adult social care scrutiny board this week, who decided against putting the closure out to public consultation.

Mr Williams said the main reason for closure was not financial, saying if the council wanted to continue the service it could be done, but he added: “I honestly can’t recommend that to you because it would a monumental waste of public money.”

He added: “It’s a very difficult case to say that we should keep this almost brand new building on standby just in case when we know that women are making positive choices to seek birth experiences elsewhere.

“It is very difficult to sustain that when we have the opportunity to do better things with that building.”

Board vice-chairman, Councillor Susan Downing, said: “It’s a very difficult position and I’m sorry we are going to lose this unit but in the financial restrictions we have got lately, I can’t see it is justified that a further consultation takes place.”

The centre is a stand-alone midwife-led centre, which provides maternity care provision for low-risk women in Sandwell and West Birmingham.

Since opening in November 2011, 337 women have used it, with 290 giving birth there.

By George Makin, Local Democracy Reporter