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£3m birthing centre closes after four years
Sophie Goodchild, Health Editor25.03.08
A £3 million London birthing centre is being scrapped less than four years after opening.
Health bosses have taken the decision because the Brent Birthing Centre has made losses of nearly £1 million.
The cost to the NHS of the centre, based at Central Middlesex Hospital in Park Royal, has been £1.2 million a year.
But the award-winning unit has been massively under-used with midwives delivering only 300 babies a year - just five per cent of all births in Brent.
The facility will now be moved to Northwick Park Hospital in Harrow.
Critics claimed women were reluctant to use the centre because there were no obstetricians on site if they encountered complications.
Health campaigner Sarah Cox said: "This decision has been driven by costs and not the needs of the parents and children. Women from the south of the borough will not travel all the way to Northwick Park but the area has one of the highest birth rates in the borough." News of the closure comes amid increasing concern that maternity services are in crisis.
Ministers have pledged to offer women more choice over where they give birth and to improve patient care.
But figures released last week revealed that nearly half of hospitals are shutting their doors to women in labour because they have too many patients, leaving some to travel miles to give birth. Data uncovered by the Conservatives found that nine per cent of NHS hospitals have turned women away on more than 10 occasions. The worst unit did so 39 times.
The Standard has learned that one maternity unit in Surrey had to divert patients twice last month to other hospitals.
Doctors at the Princess Royal University Hospital in Farnborough were forced to turn away women when the unit reached full capacity.
Instead, the women were sent several miles to Queen Mary's Hospital in Sidcup. Tomorrow, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence will issue new guidance to doctors on caring for women during pregnancy.
This will increase the responsibility on midwives to provide patients with comprehensive information about their birth choices.
Earlier this year, the Government's health watchdog, the Healthcare Commission, revealed that maternity services in London were among the worst in the country. Some women have to give birth alone on dirty wards because of staff shortages.
Health chiefs at North West London Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs the Brent Birthing Centre, said antenatal care will still be provided at Central Middlesex.
Chairman Moira Black said: "Our challenge now... is to ensure that a new centre builds on this good practice so that we can provide a first-class midwiferyled service for women across Brent and Harrow."
