Maternity Services in Sutton and Epsom

The Evening Standard yesterday published figure for the anuual number of births at each London Region NHS Hospital. This showed that Epsom Hospital (1868) and St Helier (2,664) had the lowest figures in the list. This compares to an average of 3,500-4,000 for most London Hospitals, with St George's at 4,654 and Kingston at 4,845.

This will add to pressure to reduce services to one unit, thus raising the total for one unit up to nearly 4,000 assuming at least some mothers migrate to other hospitals. Again this is likely to lead to services transferring from Epsom to St Helier. Due to the size of any single unit, I suspect that is likely to survive locally in the evolving NHS even if some aspects of Critical Care subsequently migrate to St George's. In effect a phased rebuild St Helier, with enhanced maternity services might well be the final outcome of the discredited BHCH process. Within Sutton at least they might actually have quite a lot of consensus behind it despite what a few Trust senior managers might think.

The question is whether there will even be a midwife led birthing unit at or near Epsom Hospital, especially in the current climate of Trust cuts and the lack of available staff.

As well as Epsom residents, this issue also affects 14% of Sutton residents living in Nonsuch and Cheam Wards, whose child births are currently handled at Epsom. Hopefully the Sutton Health Scrutiny Commitee will remember this when it comes to consider its response on the subject.