Hospital’s ‘isolated’ maternity services under question

Cheshire and Merseyside Integrated Care Board is to begin consulting on a major case for change to gynaecology and maternity services in Liverpool.

Liverpool Women’s Foundation Trust, which specialises in women’s and babies’ health, hosts much of the maternity and gynaecological care in the city.

However, the ICB argues its main hospital site in Crown Street is too isolated from other acute services, and therefore less able to manage acutely ill patients or women with complex surgical needs.

A report to the board said clinicians “may need to stop what they are doing at one hospital and travel to another, or patients may have to be transferred by ambulance from one hospital to another, which can take some hours to organise safely”.

It added: “The current organisation of women’s hospital services in Liverpool results in delays to care, which impacts on the quality of care women and babies experience and increases risks for clinical and care staff to manage.

“This includes a lack of immediate availability of clinical expertise, as well as facilities for specialist medical care and radiological procedures.”

According to the report, there were 73 serious clinical incidents in gynaecology and maternity services over a four-year period, between 2018 and 2022. A review found the isolation of women’s services away from other sites was a “major causal factor” in 19 of them.

Leaders held an extraordinary board meeting on the case for change today, however, they were met with significant opposition from members of the public, who want the services to remain in Crown Street.

The ICB has stressed it has no concrete plans, and a six-week period of public engagement on the case for change will now begin. Responses will be analysed by an independent organisation before results are published early next year.

LWFT recently moved to a joint CEO and chair – James Sumner and David Flory – with Liverpool University Hospitals Foundation Trust, and the organisations are moving to a shared board, following recommendations from a clinical services review.

Liverpool has a unique service configuration, with four specialist providers other than LWFT. Leaders say the trust is the only provider of gynaecology and maternity services in the country that is not co-located with other acute hospital services.

Fiona Lemmens, Cheshire and Merseyside ICB’s deputy medical director, said ahead of the meeting: “The way that hospital gynaecology and maternity services in Liverpool are organised means that some care does not meet national care standards.

“If we don’t address this, there is a growing risk that we might not be able to provide some specialist care in Liverpool in the future.”

Dr Lemmens told the meeting it is “too early to speculate” about what services could look like at Crown Street if the services are moved, but added leaders are “absolutely committed to NHS services being delivered on that site”.