Gloucestershire maternity shortages 'slowly improving'

Care Quality Commission inspectors assessed maternity services at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital

Staffing issues affecting maternity services in Gloucestershire are "slowly improving", the hospital trust said.

Highlighting staff shortages, maternity services in the county were rated inadequate by the Care Quality Commission last July.

Maternity services at Cheltenham Aveta Birthing Unit and Stroud were also suspended due to a lack of staff.

Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said the improvements were down to recruitment drives.

A report discussed by councillors at a Health Overview and Scrutiny committee meeting on 14 March, found the hospital trust had also undertaken a significant plan to retain current staff.

The report said it had created a dedicated recruitment and retention team, put midwifery staffing on the risk register and looked at international recruitment.

The NHS trust has recently run a recruitment drive for new maternity staff

"The midwife to birth rate ratio has fluctuated over the last six month period," said director of midwifery, Lisa Stephens.

She said one of its key requirements was to provide one-to-one care, with one midwife to each patient.

"Our current compliance is 97%, what we should be achieving is 100%. We are improving our vacancy rate and we are continuing with some initiatives to improve our workforce."

However, while improvements have been made, Cheltenham Aveta Birthing Unit and six-post natal beds at Stroud Maternity unit will remain closed until a further review next month.

Deborah Lee, head of the hospital trust, said there were currently 25 vacancies in its midwifery service.

" We ran a recruitment event as we continue to do - we had 31 potential midwives during that event - that's a really considerable number," she added.