Councillors oppose plan to downgrade neonatal unit

Councillors objected to plans to downgrade Southend Hospital's neonatal unit

Councillors have lodged objections over plans to "downgrade" a premature baby unit.

Southend-on-Sea City Council's people scrutiny committee refused to back a plan to re-designate Southend Hospital's level two neonatal unit down to a level one special care baby unit.

Currently it can care for babies from 27 weeks gestation, but the downgrade would see babies cared from 32 weeks.

Mid and South Essex NHS Trust, which manages the area's three hospitals, proposes very premature babies will instead be transported to its hospitals in Basildon and Broomfield.

Kathy Murphy, a non-aligned councillor for St Luke's Ward, told the council meeting on Tuesday she feared it was a "gradual piecemeal approach to downgrading the hospital", reports the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

"If this goes ahead, what’s going to happen to paediatric services?" she questioned.

"Are we going to see that consultants are now going to be at Basildon and Broomfield because that’s where the higher level is?

"Are our paediatric services then going to be downgraded? That’s going to impact on our emergency department services and then that’s going to be downgraded."

Labour councillor Lydia Hyde, who is not a member of the committee but asked to speak, accused the trust of being "disconnected" from the community, spending time "bolstering excuses without fair engagement on the concerns".

'Retrograde step'

Tony Cox, leader of the Reform Group, told the meeting he believed it was "a downgrade".

"They're not trying to window dress this," he said.

"There’s a problem so let’s downgrade it. This is a retrograde step. It does make Southend go backwards."

The unit has been operating "temporarily" as a special care baby unit since 2023 after safety concerns were raised about the unit.

The new designation is set to be implemented in February.

Speaking at the meeting Nicki Abbott, interim managing director for women’s and children’s division at the trust, said there was more capacity than needed and expert staff could be used to bolster paediatric services.

"Since we implemented this in January 2023 there have been eight babies that have been transferred to another site," she said.

"The current unit would not be fit for purpose to be a level two unit. It would need £1.6m of capital investment.

"It currently doesn’t meet infection prevention and control standards due to the proximity of the cots to each other.

"We mitigate this on a daily basis due to the lower volume of babies that we have in the unit."