Maidstone Hospital (Maternity Services)

Helen Grant Excerpts

Tuesday 14th September 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald) (Con)]

In a few months’ time, if current plans proceed, there will be no consultant-led maternity services at Maidstone hospital. That means that each year, 2,000 women will be put at greater risk, with potentially lethal consequences. The community in Maidstone has spoken out loud and clear, and thousands of people have signed a petition to say no. Our borough and county councillors have said no, and members of the business community have said no. As a local resident and mother of two, I also say no. In a recent survey, 97% of respondents said no, and the response rate to that survey was 77%, which is high.

We are not resistant to change and we have no hidden agenda. We do not ask for anything new, and we do not seek something different. We simply want to retain our existing services, and maintain genuine, safe choices for our community. The NHS trust tells us that for the first time, choice will be available to Maidstone mothers. There will be a midwifery-led birthing unit with six beds in Maidstone, or people can travel to Pembury, Medway, Ashford or Dartford, which all require long journeys. However, I say that mums with complications or those who need an epidural will have no local choice; mums who need a Caesarean section, or those who simply want to know that they will have the best expertise and equipment available when their baby decides to come out, will have no local choice. The trust tells us that patients will vote with their feet, but it does not mention that many patients cannot vote to remain in Maidstone.

I have with me in the Chamber a bundle of letters addressed to the Secretary of State for Health. They have been signed by 100 GPs from the Maidstone area who claim that the new journey times over bad rural roads are unacceptable. They say that the extra risk and stress to mothers in labour is unacceptable and that, worryingly, it is a near certainty that some babies who are delivered in Maidstone will need immediate medical treatment and could die or suffer brain damage while en route to Pembury or elsewhere. Those are our GPs and future commissioners of services, and they are talking about our mums, children and babies.

I will not go on too long or go into too much detail, but I can speak from personal experience because my first child arrived a month early. I was in a full service NHS hospital and was cared for by a superb midwife called Sister Butler. Near the end, my baby became tired and his heart rate started to drop. Sister Butler looked worried and suddenly there was not one but four heads around the delivery table, including a consultant, and there was lots more equipment. That happened in moments, and it illustrates how quickly an apparently normal birth can change. Baby Benjamin Grant arrived safely, but I shudder to think of the consequences if he had had to take a 50-minute journey to Pembury—that is what it would have been.

Our campaign is about community, choice and safety. The evidence against downgrading our maternity services is powerful and profound. The reconfiguration plans are utterly wrong and dangerous and will lead to fatalities. On 21 May, the Secretary of State set out new, visionary criteria for hospital reconfigurations. Those criteria show his commitment to reforming the NHS and giving power back to our patients and—rightly—to our health professionals.

On 7 September, in reply to my oral question, the Secretary of State said:

“one of the four criteria that I set out on 21 May was that reconfigurations must have the support of local general practitioners as the future commissioners of services. To that extent, a reconfiguration that did not have the support of local general practices would not be able to meet that test.”—[Official Report, 7 September 2010; Vol. 515, c. 177.]

We have clearly demonstrated in my constituency that local GPs are strongly against the reconfiguration plan. In his recent White Paper, the Secretary of State said that there would be “No decision about me without me.” Maidstone GPs and patients have answered that call: they have said no, and they have said it loud and clear. When he considers the proposal in detail at the end of the month, I urge the Secretary of State to reject the reconfiguration plan that would move services for women and children from Maidstone. I am grateful to you, Mr Walker, for allowing me the opportunity to speak, and I believe that some of my colleagues have something to say.