Changes to Maternity Services at Milton Keynes University Hospital
More people accessing maternity services in Milton Keynes University Hospital will have their care delivered in traditional community and hospital settings over the coming weeks.
As the hospital continues to recruit more midwives, pressure on current midwifery staff means that there will be fewer midwives working in continuity of carer teams and more working in traditional community and hospital settings. The home birth service will not be affected by this change.
We have needed to make this change to make sure that the maternity services we provide are safely staffed and are able to provide good care to the people using them.
The hospital will maintain three continuity of carer teams – a model designed to provide care by the same midwife or small team of midwives throughout pregnancy, birth and postnatal care.
The decision has been taken following extensive engagement with our midwives and maternity staff, taking into consideration feedback from service users.
People using our maternity services will still be provided with a named midwife. In practice, this change may mean a service user who may have expected to see a midwife from a continuity of carer team in the community and in hospital, seeing a different midwife in the hospital setting than in the community setting, but the level of care they and their family receive will remain unchanged.
Anyone using our maternity services will be informed of any change that may affect how they access their midwifery or multi-professional team directly by their midwife.
This brief outlines the staffing challenges, the engagement we have undertaken and our next steps.
Last Modified: 10:49am 14/07/2022
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