Leicester hospital services shake-up to close birth centre

A £450m plan to improve health services at Leicester's hospitals has been approved, meaning a popular birth centre will be closed.

Health bosses signed off on the proposals, after a public consultation, at a meeting on Tuesday.

Plans include a new maternity hospital and children's hospital at the Leicester Royal Infirmary (LRI).

It means St Mary's Birth Centre in Melton will be replaced by a city midwifery unit.

The Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland clinical commissioning groups said relocating the standalone midwifery facility to Leicester General Hospital will improve access for women across the area.

Parents have campaigned to save it, with one mother telling the BBC they would have struggled to reach a Leicester hospital in time to have their child.

Helen Cliff, co-founder of the Save St Mary's Birth Centre group, said she was "naturally devastated" at the news of its closure.

She said: "The closure of St Mary's will have far-reaching effects for families throughout the whole of Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland who will be unable to access this much-loved facility in the future."

The £450m revamp - which is being funded by the Treasury - means Leicester will go from having three hospitals providing acute services to two.

Also included in the restructure is a new purpose built treatment centre at Glenfield Hospital, a new primary urgent treatment centre at Leicester General Hospital and an increase in public car parking at the LRI and Glenfield Hospital sites.

Steve Score, from Save our NHS Leicestershire, said he was unhappy with the way the public consultation had been carried out.

"We are very disappointed with the decisions which have been made. The meeting itself felt like a rubberstamping exercise," he said.

"We don't think there is enough capacity built into the hospitals for the future. Of course we welcome the investment, it is much-needed investment."

In response, Andy Williams, chief executive for the CCGs, said he thought the consultation had been very extensive.

He said: "We've run a full formal public consultation that ran for three months... we used all sorts of different media - leaflets, posters, meetings, adverts - all sort of ways which we could get a response."

He added: "I am confident the agreed proposals will enable us to build hospitals and develop services to be proud of for many generations to come."

Andrew Furlong, medical director at Leicester's hospitals, said: "We have amazing staff, achieving amazing things, but in many cases in buildings and facilities that all too often let us down and with all the pressure that comes from staff and services being spread too thinly across three sites.

"These plans will change that, enabling us to offer significantly improved care and outcomes for our patients."

The work is expected to be completed by 2026.

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