Fresh consultation for birth centre facing axe

Plans to permanently close the birth centre at Pontefract Hospital have now been paused

The NHS has agreed to reconsider plans to permanently close the maternity unit at Pontefract Hospital.

Friarwood Birth Centre was temporarily shut in 2019 on safety grounds due to a midwife shortage.

A decision to close it permanently has been put on hold following objections from councillors about the public engagement process.

Jo Webster, of the Wakefield District Health and Care Partnership (WDHCP), said a new consultation would be carried out.

WDHCP had agreed to the permanent closure of the unit earlier this month.

But days later, Wakefield Council’s NHS scrutiny committee referred the decision back to WDHCP, calling for a fresh consultation with the public.

In a letter to committee members, Ms Webster, place lead for WDHCP, said this would now take place.

Ms Webster said: “In the meantime we have asked that the decision to close the birthing unit at Pontefract should be paused.”

The new consultation was unlikely to take place before the local elections in May, a special meeting of Wakefield Council’s NHS scrutiny committee heard on Thursday.

Ms Webster said in the meantime, the facility, run by the Mid Yorkshire NHS Hospitals Trust, would remain closed.

Jo Webster, place lead for Wakefield District Health and Care Partnership, says a fresh consultation will take place

Maternity provision would continue to be prioritised at Pinderfields Hospital, with full antenatal and postnatal care services remaining at Pontefract, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Scrutiny committee chair Elizabeth Rhodes said: “This gives an opportunity for the public to now have their say.

“This is all that we can do through our committee. That’s the importance of proper scrutiny."

Ms Rhodes added: “The committee made it plain that the [consultation] process had not been followed.”

The last public engagement on potential closure was carried out in 2018 and 2019.

Committee member Melanie Jones said this was now "five or six years ago", adding: "These are different mothers and fathers coming through that want different choices and options.

“It is important that there is further consultation."

Parents 'let down'

Councillors previously accused local NHS decision-makers of "deliberately running down" the town’s maternity services in order to justify its closure.

Yvette Cooper, Labour MP for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford, has also called for the centre to stay open, saying parents had been "let down".

The NHS said the number of births at Pontefract was “lower than expected” so it could not justify midwives being deployed there.

A report said about 200 women a year gave birth at Pontefract before the unit’s suspension and midwives continued to work at centres where the numbers were higher.