Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether (a) her Department, (b) NHS England and (c) NHS Herefordshire and Worcestershire Integrated Care Board has made a recent assessment of the potential merits of returning (i) maternity and (ii) children's services to the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch in the context of population (A) trends and (B) needs in the local area.

The reconfiguration of services is a clinically led local decision following appropriate engagement with patients and stakeholders. There are no plans to change the current configuration of services.

There have been significant improvements to children’s and maternity services provided by the Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust since the reconfiguration of services. The presence of consultants for children’s services has increased with reduced reliance on agency locums and the Care Quality Commission has improved the rating for maternity services from ‘requires improvement’ to ‘good’ at the Worcestershire Royal Hospital.