Maternity units are safe says health boss

The health boss in charge of Shropshire's two main hospitals says maternity services in the county are safe.

Shrewsbury & Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SATH) is currently the focus of a Health Secretary-ordered review of the way it investigated a series of baby deaths over the past few years.

Simon Wright, chief executive of SATH, said the trust did not share information about the deaths well enough in the past.

He said: "There are areas we need to improve on and we are working on that.

"Any death is one death too many - we are looking at what steps we can do to make it an exception and if we could remove it completely.

“Our primary focus is improving the care we provide our mums and babies and we are working very hard to try and improve.

"If we were presented with information saying the service was not safe, then we would stop it immediately.

"We have done this before in the past with other services.

"Nearly 99 per cent of all mums who access our service would recommend the service to friends and family.

The midwife-led units in Oswestry, Bridgnorth and Ludlow have all faced a string of temporary closures recently because of staff shortages. Local services are currently suspended until July 11th.

Mr Wright says the consultant-led unit in Telford is his priority and staff are moved there when necessary, because it's where the bulk of the work is.

"Inevitably we've got more mums who are fearful about being away from the main centre with all the technology that's there and if you're a midwife, within the current climate you're going to have a lower risk threshold, so you're going to be bringing more of those mums to the consultant-led unit."