Spotlight
Three-month review of temporarily closed services at Yeovil District Hospital
It has been three months since we temporarily closed our Special Care Baby Unit (SCBU) and inpatient maternity services at Yeovil District Hospital (YDH).
We thank all our service users, their families and our colleagues for their understanding, support and hard work during this period of upheaval.
We committed to providing a formal review of the temporary closures after three and six months. This is a contractual process between our trust and our commissioner NHS Somerset. We have shared the impact of the temporary closures and the work we are doing to reopen with the ICB and they are reviewing the information. We will update further when the process is concluded.
Impact of temporary closures
Since the start of the temporary closures on 19 May up until the end of week beginning 11 August, 212 babies have been born who would have been born at YDH.
- 90 were born at Musgrove Park Hospital
- 96 were born at Dorset County Hospital
- 5 at the Royal United Hospital in Bath
- 5 were born in other hospitals
- 16 were born at home.
We know that these temporary closures have had a big impact on all of our service users and on our colleagues. We are continuing to work with Dorset County Hospital and the independent Somerset Maternity and Neonatal Voices partnership to support service users, and with our colleagues to support them.
Progress to reopening
We are addressing concerns about the safety, quality and fragility of the paediatric service at YDH so that we can safety reopen SCBU and inpatient maternity services.
As part of this, we are designing a Somerset-wide paediatric service to provide equitable services across the county, with services provided at both YDH and MPH.
We are recruiting consultant paediatricians to work across both sites and have shortlisted a number of strong candidates. In addition, from September, paediatric resident doctors will also work across both sites.
This is a very challenging time, but we are confident that we can build a stronger, more sustainable and future facing service for babies, children and young people in Somerset. We will update further once the three-month review process is concluded.
Background
Temporary closures
We took this very difficult decision to close the SCBU and inpatient maternity services at YDH from 19 May for an initial period of six months because of concerns about the safety, quality and fragility of the paediatric service at YDH.
Consultant paediatricians from Musgrove Park Hospital (MPH) stepped in to work at both acute hospitals which enabled us to keep running inpatient and outpatient paediatric services. However, we were not able to keep the SCBU open and the consequence of this was that we also had to temporarily close inpatient maternity services at YDH.
Publication of the Care Quality Commission reports into paediatric services
At the end of June, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) published its reports into the paediatric services at both MPH and YDH, following its inspection in January. The CQC rated the paediatric service at YDH as inadequate overall and the paediatric service at MPH as good overall.
Our priorities are to provide an equitable service for babies, children and young people across Somerset, to recruit to key roles, and to ensure our paediatric services have strong governance processes and a positive learning culture.