North Devon expectant mothers are on their own as of today.

M0nica

If I had had a 90 minute drive DD would have been born in the car.

So would younger so ! We barely made it to the hospital anyway.

I saw this on local TV last night and thought what would I have done. I decided I would get an Airbnb or BnB in Exeter around 10 days to 2 weeks before my due date to ensure being nearer the hospital. Yes it's expensive but I would get a loan, credit card, borrow from family or friends any way I could to be sure my baby arrived safely.
You need a consultant obstetrician, anaesthetist and paediatric consultant in some cases with complicated deliveries. My friend's daughter had a prolapse and haemorrhage during a recent delivery so just a midwife wouldn't have been enough to save her.

It's not just Devon. Some places in Scotland have to travel further. Maternity Services seem to be one of the first things to go.

No Midwives have not disappeared- we just don't have enough of them and many feel a certain lack of support after recent Midwifery Care scandals that have highlighted unsafe staffing levels.

Midwifery care is a high risk environment- both for baby and mother so it is understandable that if staffing levels are not safe and the inherent service risk increase- health care trust will act conservatively.

A state Registered Midwife is a stand alone qualification- just as a Registered Nurse (RN) is also a stand alone qualification with different specialisms eg. also standalone qualifications e.g. eg General nursing- RGN, Mental Health nursing - RNMH, Learning Disabilities nursing- RNLD.

Once a Registered Nurseor Midwife secures their first qualification in their initial specialism, e.g. an RM, RGN, RMHN, RNLD, they can apply for an additional, yet somewhat shortened course to secure a second specialism qualification thus becoming dual registered- that is on 2 parts of the Nursing and Midwifery Council Register.

Excuse my ignorance but what happened to midwives? Or did they all go out with the last episode of Call the Midwife? I suppose modern regulations demand a senior consultant on call because of difficulties.

LizzieDrip

I would make nurses training fully funded so they don’t end up in debt.

I would offer a financial incentive to qualified nurses who’ve left the profession to encourage them to return, particularly in areas of need.

I’d start doing this now!

Most qualified nurses would not be likely to return to the profession. I had coffee with two old schoolfriends yesterday, one was a retired nurse, the other retired social worker. The nurse said she had met up with 2 other retired nurses last week and they had both gone back to very part time nursing jobs in the NHS but left very quickly. They said the standard of nurses coming through now shocked them and they report lack of empathy, poor communication with patients and cutting corners wherever they can.

JenniRen

butterandjam

Fleur20

Mothers to be, in labour, travel for 3 hours from the north of Scotland , Wick, to Raigmore hospital in Inverness.. not a competition, but a fact...

Pregnant women on the Scottish Islands often have to travel to the mainland and stay there, * ahead of their due date*, to make sure they are within reach of the maternity services for c-section , neonatal resus, etc. ( emergency helicopter transfers can't be relied on as they are subject to weather conditions / deployment elsewhere) .

Is that because the hospital that served them closed down or reduced the services?
Or was it always like that?

theworriedwell, my brother-in-law has had very good experience of the Peninsula Medical School.

Soem islands neber had a hospital. some have only a "cottage hospital" . An example

www.neonataltransport.scot.nhs.uk/hospitals/rural-and-remote-hospitals/remote-and-rural-hospitals-by-name-of-townarea/uist-and-barra-hospital-benbecula/

A cottage hospital on Benbecula serving the islands of Barra and the Uists. <3 deliveried a year- mostly unexpected deliveries as most travel off the Island for delivery.

Responsible Unit
Raigmore Hospital, Inverness or Western Isles Hospital, Lewis

Staff
1 midwife working Monday to Friday 9-5.
Medical support is from the local GPs on call.

Unit facilities
Incubator: No
Resuscitaire: Yes, with T piece
Saturation Monitor: Yes
Air/Oxygen availability: O2 cylinders
X rays: Just daytime
Blood gases: No
Blood sugars: Yes
Infusion pumps: Yes
Phototherapy: No

One time I went to Barra (5 hour sea crossing ) the ferry captain made an announcement to "welcome home from the hospital" a Barra mother and baby.

Caught short, she had given birth on board the ferry on the outward trip some days earlier.

I wouldn't want to work in Devon after medical training, it's nearly all old people care.
(Joke). (But true).

Oh dear.

Mind you, I think that's the same in many places. They have all gone private. We pay Denplan but it doesn't give much discount.

JenniRen I know someone who trained at the Peninsula Medical School. They didn't choose to work in Devon once trained. Back when it opened it was said people who trained here would want to stay in the area but recruitment doesn't seem to have improved. I think it's even worse for dentists than doctors, in the years I've lived here I've never been able to get an NHS dentist.

MartavTaurus

^Could it be due to a shortage of doctors because not enough training posts are available?^
Maybe, and yet there's a paradox going on here, because six out of 10 job-seeking trained GPs struggle to find a vacancy to apply for?

Perhaps the reason some new GP's struggle to find a post, is that they only want to work part-time?

"Among current trainee GP's' Only 28.9% plan to work full-time one year after qualifying,

falling to 11.8% after five years

and just 5.9% after ten years."


<https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/insight-and-analysis/blogs/why-gp-trainees-are-worried-about-finding-jobs

Quite common here, as you could imagine but it sounds weird in a small country.

butterandjam

Fleur20

Mothers to be, in labour, travel for 3 hours from the north of Scotland , Wick, to Raigmore hospital in Inverness.. not a competition, but a fact...

Pregnant women on the Scottish Islands often have to travel to the mainland and stay there, * ahead of their due date*, to make sure they are within reach of the maternity services for c-section , neonatal resus, etc. ( emergency helicopter transfers can't be relied on as they are subject to weather conditions / deployment elsewhere) .

That's sensible, I can't see how else things could be managed. Do we know who pays their transport and accommodation costs?

I'm guessing the number on Scottish Islands is much lower than the 1,600+ giving birth in Barnstaple each year. And then of course, the knock on effect is that Exeter can't possibly accommodate an additional 150 births a month because they're already bulging at the seams there.

butterandjam

Fleur20

Mothers to be, in labour, travel for 3 hours from the north of Scotland , Wick, to Raigmore hospital in Inverness.. not a competition, but a fact...

Pregnant women on the Scottish Islands often have to travel to the mainland and stay there, * ahead of their due date*, to make sure they are within reach of the maternity services for c-section , neonatal resus, etc. ( emergency helicopter transfers can't be relied on as they are subject to weather conditions / deployment elsewhere) .

Is that because the hospital that served them closed down or reduced the services?
Or was it always like that?

theworriedwell, my brother-in-law has had very good experience of the Peninsula Medical School.

I live in Devon but the south. It always surprises me that it is difficult to attract doctors and dentists down here as it's supposed to be an attractive area, mind you I hate It and want to move but husband won't. It was supposed to improve when they opened the Peninsula Medical School but that didn't seem to work.

They wouldn't have taken this decision lightly, they want to keep these new Mums and Babies safe. Lots of things come into play it might also be due to availability and staffing of Special Baby /Neonatal unit.
My local hospital is the only one to have a dedicated unit so babies born elsewhere have to be Blue lighter to the unit. My sister was once a Sister on our local one, the training is intense as some of these babies have a one - to - one cover.

Fleur20

Mothers to be, in labour, travel for 3 hours from the north of Scotland , Wick, to Raigmore hospital in Inverness.. not a competition, but a fact...

Pregnant women on the Scottish Islands often have to travel to the mainland and stay there, * ahead of their due date*, to make sure they are within reach of the maternity services for c-section , neonatal resus, etc. ( emergency helicopter transfers can't be relied on as they are subject to weather conditions / deployment elsewhere) .

I'm guessing the situation in the area is also compounded by the fact that North Devon ranks in the top 10% of socially deprived areas in England. There's low wages and high unemployment, so today's decision forces those very people even further down the pile. Hardship upon upon hardship, and greater isolation.

MartavTaurus

^Could it be due to a shortage of doctors because not enough training posts are available?^
Maybe, and yet there's a paradox going on here, because six out of 10 job-seeking trained GPs struggle to find a vacancy to apply for?

I think it's all down on the expectation of *past tory governments over 40 years that our public services can be run on a shoestring. It causes all sorts of paradoxical situations.

*I refuse to include the 1997 -2010 Labour governments in tis because they did put more money into the NHS, though it may not have been enough.

I remember a lack of training places on previous occasions.
We never seem to get it quite right in this country do we.

Medical facilities do seem to be becoming more centralised which might mean the skills are concentrated in certain areas but that is not really patient-friendly except for those who live near these hospitals and centres of excellence.

Could it be due to a shortage of doctors because not enough training posts are available?
Maybe, and yet there's a paradox going on here, because six out of 10 job-seeking trained GPs struggle to find a vacancy to apply for?

Consultants apply for posts which specify where they are working so I doubt that is the reason MartavTaurus. Maizie's post is more likely to be relevant. Increasing medical training places without increasing specialist training places just creates a log jam and increasing specialist training places depends on having consultants in place to support the training. There is no quick fix to this problem. My daughter's specialism is as follows so the problem looks set to worsen considerably. When working on obstetrics she not only works in theatre but is also responsible for administering epidurals and spinals which are essential in a delivery facility.
"Core/ACCS Anaesthetics (CT1) is heavily oversubscribed in the UK. Recent national recruitment data shows roughly 5,766 to 6,770 total applications submitted for an available pool of around 530 to 540 core training posts, resulting in a high competition ratio averaging between 6.5:1 and over 10:1 depending on the specific application cycle"
"According to reports by the Royal College of Anaesthetists (RCoA), roughly 1 in 4 consultant anaesthetists (about 25%) plan to leave the NHS within five years, with retirement cited as a primary factor by a significant majority (64%) of those planning departures" AI gen.

Having travelled that route on more than one occasion, I know how long it takes, especially during holiday times.

Luckily, we lived much nearer a hospital and maternity homes were open too in the distant days when my children were born. However, Number three would have arrived in the car too had we had to travel that far.

It's not that people choose to live in areas far from hospitals, it's the fact that hospitals close or certain services shut down.

The solutions are for the Government to work out. It could take time but newly qualified medical staff, doctors, nurses, midwives, should not be starting their working lives with such huge debts hanging over them.

Well, it can't be due to pay, because Consultant roles in understaffed departments like Obstetrics and Gynaecology are being advertised at up to £150,569 to attract experienced medical staff.

It can't be due Devon's work-life balance, because we have great beaches, surfing, and excellent local schools to attract doctors looking to raise families.

Could it be due to a shortage of doctors because not enough training posts are available?

AI seems to think so

There is currently a serious shortage of UK medical specialty training posts relative to the number of doctors seeking them, particularly in England. This is one of the more striking contradictions in NHS workforce policy: the UK has increased the number of medical graduates, while not increasing postgraduate training capacity sufficiently to accommodate them. Chatgtp