Issue - meetings

1.1.         The Committee considered a report on the quality and performance of maternity services for East Sussex residents, including feedback from local women obtained from a survey undertaken by Eastbourne Borough Council.

1.2.        Councillor Robert Smart, Eastbourne Borough Council; Peter Finnis, Assistant Director – Corporate Governance, Eastbourne Borough Council; Amanda Philpott, Chief Officer, EHS/HR CCG; Jessica Britton, Chief Operating Officer, EHS/HR CCG; Vikki Carruth, Director of Nursing, ESHT; and Sarah Blanchard-Stow, Head of Midwifery, ESHT were present for this item.

1.1.        In addition to the written report submitted to HOSC by Eastbourne Borough Council, Cllr Robert Smart made the following additional points:

·         The Eastbourne Borough Council survey is the most extensive of its kind and was sent to all mothers who gave birth in East Sussex during 2016, based on Office of National Statistics (ONS) data. The response rate was 35%.

·         The survey provides evidence that 93% of mothers in the EHS CCG area who responded to the survey would wish to give birth at EDGH if there were a full obstetric service available.

·         There should be an independent review to consider whether the ONS figures for stillbirths in Eastbourne are in any way correlated to the single siting of obstetrics services at Conquest Hospital, Hastings, and the related travel times.

·         The extensive Netherlands study (of over 700,000 mothers) simply concludes that a travel time of over 20 minutes increases risk.

·         The National Maternity and Perinatal Audit published in 2017 shows that maternity services are not performing as well as is set out in the CCGs’ report.

·         Any complete review of maternity services should look into its share of ESHT's reported clinical negligence liabilities of £80 million, with £13m being paid out. Nationally, maternity accounts for 50% of payouts, according to NHS Resolution, so this would amount to approximately £6.5m maternity payments.

1.2.        A number of questions from HOSC were answered by witnesses.

Transfers during labour

1.3.        Councillor Robert Smart said that a figure of 90 patients transferred during labour referred to the number of respondents to the survey who had been transferred to the Obstetric Unit at Conquest Hospital during labour. He said that 55 came from the EHS CCG area, 15 from the HR CCG area and 20 from the HWLH CCG area.

1.4.        Peter Finnis observed that the survey findings indicated more Eastbourne mothers experienced transfer than the rest of the county put together and suggested that this was an inequality of service that is an ongoing concern to the Eastbourne community.

1.5.        Sarah Blanchard-Stow said that the Midwife Led Unit (MLU) at Eastbourne District General Hospital (EDGH) is staffed solely by midwives. Normal, low risk labour can take place at the MLU, but if at any point there is a deviation from normality or the woman requests more pain relief then a transfer will take place. A lack of other MLUs in the local area makes comparisons of transfer rates difficult, but the figures are compared to those published by the Birthplace Study.

1.6.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 30