Midwife centres to reopen in Ludlow, Bridgnorth and Oswestry

The reopened services include delivery suites for birth and postnatal care wards.

Services, which had been suspended in July due to staff shortages and sickness, are reopening following a successful recruitment programme, and the introduction of new ways of working for the midwifery team.

Particular attention has been paid to home births with an on-call arrangement which allows the midwives to be more flexible across the county.

Any woman who is due to give birth in the New Year and would like to give birth at Bridgnorth, Ludlow or Owsestry Midwife-Led Unit, should contact her midwife to discuss this.

A spokesman for the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust said: “The safety of women and babies using our maternity service continues to be our number one priority and as with all areas of our hospitals, we have contingency plans in place should we face unexpectedly high levels of demand or face further staff shortages in the future.

“Staffing levels are an important factor in delivering a high-quality, safe service for women and their babies and we continue to work to make sure we have the very best teams in the right place.”

Inpatient services including the delivery suites for births and postnatal care will be reinstated at Bridgnorth MLU, Ludlow MLU and Oswestry MLU

The reopening of inpatient maternity services in Bridgnorth, Ludlow and Oswestry is separate from the clinical commissioners’ proposal for a new service model for midwifery-led services across the county.

The proposed new model has been approved for consultation by Shropshire Clinical Commissioning Group and now needs to go to Telford and Wrekin Clinical Commissioning Group for similar approval before a public consultation on the long-term pattern of maternity services in this area can begin.