24-hour service ruled out at maternity unit (From Gazette & Herald)

24-hour service ruled out at maternity unit

KEEPING Malton's maternity unit as a 24-hour service has already been ruled out by the NHS trust operating the hospital - before any public consultation has been carried out.

In addition, any changes made to maternity provision will be carried out just six months before a Government report looks likely to support such facilities as those at Malton Hospital.

A report made public at the beginning of the year highlighted three options for the future of the unit at Malton Hospital and similar units at Whitby and Bridlington also operated by the Scarborough and North East Yorkshire NHS Trust. The options were:

No change to present services.

Moving to an 8am-8pm service with on-call provision for births but no overnight stays.

Closing the unit and moving all provision to Scarborough.

However, the trust working group charged with investigating the provision of services has only been presented with two options - the 8am-8pm service and the closing of the outlying units.

Dale Meegan, chairman of the modernisation and development board set up by the NHS trust, said working groups were investigating various "models" for the future of the maternity units at the four hospitals - Scarborough, Whitby, Bridlington and Malton.

One group is looking at the way the public consultation exercise - promised in January by Michael Whitworth, the chief executive of the primary care trust (PCT) which provides services at Malton Hospital - should be carried out, and another as to how the maternity service should be provided in the primary care trust's area.

Mrs Meegan expected that the public consultation would go ahead in July.

"But we shall not just be looking at holding public meetings, but at consulting a wide range of other groups such as parent-toddler organisations."

Mrs Meegan added that a total of five different options are currently under consideration, but she confirmed that the status quo was not one of them. However, operating a maternity service between 8am and 8pm was one option.

The review of maternity services is to be completed by the end of July - with the final meeting of the group charged with overseeing the changes just five weeks away on July 4.

By that date, the promised public consultation has to be completed, but while a draft questionnaire has been created, none has yet been sent out and no date for a public meeting has been set.

The PCT acknowledged the need for public consultation in a report from a meeting held at the end of March - stating that section 11 of the Health and Social Care Act "places a wider duty to involve and consult patients and the public" and adding that the consultation "must be adequate in terms of time and content and appropriate to the scale of the issue being considered... As a general rule, proposals to change services should be informed by the views and experiences of the people who use them".

Helen Ashton, the National Childbirth Trust representative of the maternity services modernisation and development board - the group charged with the review of services - hit out at the way in which the review is being conducted.

She particularly condemned the speed of the review - which means that a decision will be made six months before the Government is due to report on how best to offer maternity services.

She said: "Why the rush? Is it to get a reduced service underway before several national reports, which are due to recommend definitive models of maternity care, can be published?

"If these follow, for example, the recommendations made for maternity care in Scotland... then more community midwife-led units, of which Malton is a good example, are likely to be established rather than their function being reduced."

Updated: 16:21 Wednesday, May 28, 2003