Your frequently asked questions

The Care Quality Commission inspected our paediatric services in January and issued a Section 29A warning notice because it assessed that the paediatric care we provide at Yeovil Hospital (YDH) requires significant improvement. We have also experienced high levels of sickness amongst senior paediatricians at YDH which has caused gaps in our rota. This directly impacts the YDH inpatient maternity service because we cannot care for any newborns who require care in a Special Care Baby Unit, so we are unable to safely provide care during labour and birth at the Yeovil Maternity Unit. 

In addition, the paediatric service at YDH has had high levels of sickness, with four out of six substantive consultants on long term sick, which has caused big gaps in rotas and a reliance on locums.  

Senior paediatricians from Musgrove Park Hospital are supporting the service at YDH, to ensure that paediatric inpatient and outpatient services at YDH are open for those who need them. However, we are not able to support the SCBU in the same way and therefore we must close it temporarily on safety grounds. 

Despite putting in place extensive mitigations over the last few months, including a recruitment drive, we have not been able to make the required improvements and due to concerns about the fragility of maintaining a safe, resilient paediatric rota – particularly out of hours and at weekends – a decision was reached with NHS partners on Monday 12 May to temporarily close the Special Care Baby Unit at YDH from Monday 19 May 2025, which also means that we are unable to safely provide care during labour and birth at the YDH maternity unit. 

On Tuesday 13 May, we started to talk to the staff who are directly impacted by these temporary changes, our wider stakeholders and service users. We also shared an update with the media. 

Although communications were developed and shared at pace, we were unable to share advance, detailed information about the temporary closures and we apologise for this.  

We are committed to providing safe, high quality and sustainable services and we will be working closely with maternity and paediatric teams over the coming weeks and months. 

The senior paediatric team from Musgrove Park Hospital are developing comprehensive plans to increase support for our YDH colleagues to help develop services and improve the safety and experience of Yeovil families. At the same time, we are working to enhance services for babies and service users in maternity care at Musgrove Park Hospital. 

We are also working through plans to ensure that all of our service users receive appropriate care. Part of this is to consider what services we may be able to support on the Yeovil site and which additional staffing we may need on the Musgrove site, and we will be working closely with YDH colleagues to review these options. 

We will also be developing a detailed action plan that identifies the specific actions required that will enable us to work towards the reopening of these services. 

During this time, we will be working really hard to reopen after six months, but we recognise that this will be challenging, and we must ensure that we can do so safely.  

We are also putting in place some specific criteria to support a reopening, such as ensuring we have senior paediatricians (consultants) available at the busiest times of the day and evening, as well as ensuring that we are able to operate a paediatric assessment unit on site.  

In addition, we need to ensure that we are able to safely support deliveries at the Yeovil maternity unit through the safe provision of a Special Care Baby Unit. 

Following the decision last week, our Children, Young People and Families colleagues have worked around the clock to share information and updates as quickly as possible with teams who are directly impacted by these changes. Our maternity colleagues have also contacted and spoken with pregnant women and birthing people about what the changes will mean for them and the choices they will have in their care. 

We have been working closely with local partner hospitals to ensure that women and birthing people are able to access the care that they need. 

An average of 100 service users per month (3-4 daily) give birth at Yeovil Hospital. To minimise the impact of the temporary closure, these births will be transferred between Musgrove Park Hospital, Dorset County Hospital, Royal United Hospital, Bath, and Salisbury Hospital to give women and birthing people a choice of location for birth. 

A number of changes have been made at Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton to create additional capacity in maternity services. Antenatal clinics and scanning services have been moved into the Parkside building to create additional space for maternity triage services. There are now an additional 10 maternity beds, and a dedicated transitional care area to support women and birthing people to stay with their babies if they require special care. 

In 2024, improvement work was also completed to provide an additional theatre space for emergency caesarean procedures at MPH.  

In addition, the home birth service at YDH will continue as normal. Service users will be contacted by their midwives to discuss the changes to hospital services and discuss the choices with them. 

Maternity and neonatal teams are working in partnership together, to regularly discuss and review the numbers of women and birthing people who have requested to transfer their care to other local hospitals.  

Regular meetings are taking place each week to review the impact of the temporary closures on maternity and neonatal services at Musgrove Park and other partner hospitals. 

We are confident that all service users due to give birth at Yeovil Hospital will be safely accommodated through the alternative options available. 

Maternity colleagues have reviewed the potential impact of longer journey times as part of an Equality Impact Assessment and clinical risk assessment. 

Community midwives will continue to support antenatal care in Yeovil and the surrounding areas, where pregnant women will continue to have personalised care plans and additional support in place where required. When considering the option of a home birth the travel distance and ambulance response times will be considered, and the service has been strengthened with additional midwifery colleagues from YDH to support additional service user requirements. 

Information on how to get support with travel costs and community transport services has been shared with service users and is available on the trust’s website – Travel advice for maternity care – Maternity. 

We are also working closely with the ambulance service (SWASFT), and emergency department colleagues to develop clinical pathways to support decision making for ongoing clinical responses and to ensure that the right services can be provided.  

The maternity triage number is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week and supports all pregnant women and birthing people across the county. Additional advice will be shared with anyone who is concerned or worried about where to get help in an emergency and contacting their midwife. 

Maternity and neonatal staff at Yeovil Hospital who are affected by the temporary closure, are currently being supported by the trust’s colleague wellbeing and support service and HR colleagues to discuss the options that are available to them. 

This includes alternative roles within Somerset NHS Foundation Trust to temporary relocate to Musgrove Park Hospital and other community maternity services. 

In addition, there are also individual discussions taking place to consider other potential opportunities for temporary relocation in partner maternity and neonatal services including Dorset County Hospital and Royal United Hospital, Bath. 

We are continuing to work closely with Somerset Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership, our NHS partners, service users and colleagues to encourage and take in to account all feedback received. 

Detailed plans are being developed, and we will continue to update the information and advice shared with our service users, colleagues, and stakeholders.  

If you have a question or a concern that you would like to share, please contact the Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS) by phone: 01823 343536 or email: email: pals@somersetft.nhs.uk