Doctors warn over maternity shake-up

Plans have been unveiled for a major shakeup of maternity services in London.

Under the proposal, mothers would give birth without specialist doctors present at two north London hospitals.

And new mothers whose labour goes wrong could face being sent to Cambridge for emergency treatment, doctors have warned.

Today doctors said the plan, which was formulated by health services managers, would put patients at risk and be a waste of ?3.5 million just spent refurbishing one maternity-ward. It will see maternity and children's services, currently provided by six north London hospitals, operated by four.

Two hospitals, Chase Farm and the Royal Free, will lose their children's in-patient wards, paediatric surgical services and obstetric-led maternity services. Instead, they will be left with maternity services staffed by midwives only and treatment centres where children are seen within the working day and do not stay overnight.

Doctors at the Royal Free are angry because it will mean the refurbished ?3.5 million maternity unit will be downgraded, obstetricians will have to move and specialist anaesthetists will no longer treat children.

The other hospitals - University College Hospital, Whittington, Barnet General and North Middlesex - will be developed to have children's in-patient and casualty wards, paediatric

surgery, midwife and obstetricled midwifery services and neonatal intensive care.

But sources have warned that North Middlesex and the Whittington's units are so small that they will have problems recruiting enough staff.

Planners decided to axe the Royal Free's facilities, arguing that it is a mile from the Whittington Hospital, to which services will be transferred.

But critics say it makes no sense to move newly refurbished, established services from Hampstead to a hospital where a new building would be needed and there are not enough doctors to fill the rota.

Consultant anaesthetist Adrian England, from the Royal Free, said he had three cases in the past three weeks that would have been transferred to Addenbrooke's in Cambridge, King's in Dulwich or St George's in Tooting under the new plan.

Mr England said: "The Royal Free offers considerable advantages for patients by having established specialist services that are not available elsewhere in the region running alongside general paediatric and obstetric services, all on one site."

And Paul Hardiman, consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at the Royal Free, said: "Why close a new, up-to-date labour ward, which is probably the best in London?"

A spokesman for the North Central Strategic Health Authority, which is responsible for planning hospital provision, said: "We have taken a strategic approach on where services should be based. The proposals will go out for consultation for three months."