Coleraine: Proposal to move Causeway Hospital births to Antrim approved

Staff sickness has closed two birth centres

A plan to move hospital births from Coleraine's Causeway Hospital to Antrim Hospital is a step closer after the recommendation was accepted by the Northern Health Trust's board.

The plan would mean no more obstetric consultant-led births in Coleraine.

However Causeway Hospital would retain early assessment units, antenatal and postnatal clinics, and scheduled ambulatory services.

The decision comes after a 14-week public consultation.

The Northern Trust has said birth numbers in the Causeway Coast and Glens Council area have declined year-on-year.

It expects birth rates to fall in the area by 11% within the next 20 years.

The trust had said maternity services in the area were "vulnerable and unsustainable".

It also said that consultant obstetrics and midwifery resources were spread too thinly across Antrim Area Hospital and Causeway, and that Causeway Hospital had "workforce challenges and an absence of neonatal special care baby unit facilities".

The board was given two proposals - the first, to move all births to Antrim Area Hospital while retaining antenatal and postnatal clinics at Causeway, was approved.

The other proposal - to move consultant-led births to Antrim Area Hospital and develop a free-standing unit at Causeway for low-intervention midwifery care - was not approved.

• Northern Trust maternity services 'unsustainable'

• Meeting held over Causeway maternity services

"It has therefore been concluded that the only viable option at this point is the transfer of all births to Antrim Hospital," said the medical director at the Northern Trust Dr Dave Watkins.

He said the aim was to have a new-build women and children's unit on the Antrim Hospital site.

It is subject to business case approval and funding availability and is unlikely to be commissioned for service before 2027/28 at the earliest.

A public meeting was organised by the Northern Trust last month during the public consultation on maternity services at Causeway Hospital

Dr Watkins said the "serious concerns" about the safety and sustainability of the Northern Trust's current model of maternity services could not be ignored.

He said an interim solution to address the challenges is urgently needed.

He acknowledged that "change is never easy and we understand the very real concerns that many people have and which have been well reflected throughout the consultation period".

"In recommending the transfer of all hospital births to Antrim, that does not prevent us revisiting the possibility of setting up a midwifery-led unit in the Trust at some point in the future, should the outcome of the department's review offer that flexibility," he added.

However, DUP assembly member Maurice Bradley said he was disappointed but not surprised at the plan's approval.

"An area the size of Causeway and we have a hospital with no maternity unit, it does not make sense. Add to that the huge number of visitors we get to the area all year round."

He added that it was "unacceptable to make women, who may be in labour, drive past the front doors of one hospital to another over an hour away".

The Department of Health said the trust's recommendation will now be assessed in line with its policy and guidance on change or withdrawal of service.