Midwives recruited to boost Shropshire's stretched maternity services

A total of six midwives have been appointed to work across the service and more senior midwives have been recruited to work in the delivery suite at Princess Royal Hospital in Telford.

Last month the board of Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust agreed to temporarily suspend inpatients services at midwife-led units in Bridgnorth, Ludlow and Oswestry for between three and six months from July 1.

The maternity service has faced a combination of short-term and long-term sickness in recent months, as well as a significant fall in the number of midwives prepared to work overtime or temporary bank shifts to cover for colleagues at times of sickness.

The trust is also in the process of interviewing more midwives this month.

Simon Wright, chief executive of The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals NHS Trust, said: "We are currently consulting with the public about the future of maternity services.

"We are listening to concerns and take all of those on board. We then want to start offering solutions that will give patients centred care.

"But I want to emphasise our MLU's are open for some services. We are invested in providing community solutions so we continue to want to do that.

"What is important to us is we are staffing our services around the need of the mum and baby - not bricks and mortar.

"We are still seeing a lot of mums wanting to come to the consultant-led unit and that is a national trend but it is important once we have got our strategy on how our care will look going forward we really need to promote the community offers.

"There is no doubt at all we will always want to have a rural solution. We need to make sure that solution will provide the safest and best possible care."