Princess Alexandra Hospital to spend £1m on maternity staff

The Princess Alexandra Hospital is to spend more than £1m on more maternity ward staff

An NHS hospital trust is to spend £1,049,180 on maternity staff after reports of shortages.

The Princess Alexandra Hospital, in Harlow, Essex, plans to recruit 22 new posts in the midwifery team.

A trust report found a deficit of clinical midwives, maternity support workers and managerial positions.

The hospital trust said there were currently enough front-line midwives, and the new posts would expand the team.

The deficiencies identified in the report followed reviews carried out by the director of midwifery and the staffing tool Birthrate Plus, reports the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

The reviews recommended an investment be made to "maintain safe staffing."

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Giuseppe Labriola, director of midwifery at the trust, said in a statement: "While we currently have sufficient front-line clinical midwives in all areas, we are now growing our team with additional midwives to support our new maternity support workers, specialist midwives, and we are strengthening our clinical leadership.

"In total, we are investing in approximately 22 whole time equivalent posts.

"We are looking forward to recruiting new members of our team, developing our maternity service to benefit families for the future."

A perinatal mental health midwife will be funded at a cost of £57, 227 in the first quarter of 2022-2023.

The report said £235,179 would then fund a consultant midwife, diabetic midwife, matron and governance administrator in the second quarter of that year.

Money for a preceptor support midwife and fetal medicine midwife will be released in the third quarter, totalling £114,454.

The investment includes £205,822 in Ockenden funding, named after the Ockenden report of December 2020 which looked into failings in maternity care at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust.