No date for restarting baby deliveries at hospital

A pause in the delivery of babies at a hospital, caused by staff shortages and illness, is being reviewed monthly by health chiefs.

The midwife-led Rowan Suite maternity unit at the University Hospital of Hartlepool became fully operational in late 2020 and has since delivered 113 babies.

North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust bosses announced a three-month pause in "intrapartum care" - the period during labour and delivery - at the site in May due to "staffing absences".

But Steph Worn, director of midwifery, said they will be reviewing the decision "month by month", with no fixed date set for restarting deliveries.

Ms Worn told a meeting of Hartlepool Borough Council's audit and governance committee that hospital bosses are "fully committed" to providing the service and are "continuously reviewing" the situation.

According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, antenatal and postnatal care are continuing as normal during the period, as well as home births.

Group nursing officer Emma Nunez said: "It's obviously very dependent on our current workforce and the vacancies and the sickness absences we've got at the minute, so it's hard to put a time limit on that."

Health officers claimed the pause in intrapartum care will have "quite a small impact on the Hartlepool population", with the Rowan Suite previously only taking bookings for pregnancies considered to be "low risk".

Figures presented to the meeting for a recent 18-month period stated 4,000 births occurred in the trust area, with 32% of women from a Hartlepool postcode.

Of these, 97% of deliveries occurred at the University Hospital of North Tees in Stockton and about 1% were at the Rowan Suite.