The petition of residents of the United Kingdom,
Declares that Helme Chase Maternity Unit has been underfunded by the Morecambe Bay NHS Hospitals Trust; further declares that responsibility for this falls upon previous Conservative Government’s cuts to rural health services; further notes that sufficient money and resources from the government to fully staff Helme Chase would stop the threat of permanent closure to this local maternity unit from closure.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to consider Helme Chase Maternity Unit’s resource needs when providing funding to Morecambe Bay NHS Hospitals Trust.
And the petitioners remain, etc.—[Presented by Tim Farron, Official Report, 9 September 2024; Vol. 753, c. 662.]
[P003006]
Observations from the Minister for Secondary Care (Karin Smyth):
This Government recognise that there are serious issues within maternity services, and we are determined to ensure all women receive safe, personalised and compassionate care. It is our mission to train more midwives and health visitors, incentivise continuity of care and make sure the NHS is squarely focused on tackling the shocking inequalities.
The Government are aware of University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS foundation trust’s decision to temporarily suspend birth services at Helme Chase from 10 May 2024 for a period of six months, due to staffing issues. While birth services are temporarily suspended, antenatal and post-natal care plus outpatient appointments at Helme Chase continue as normal. The trust’s home birth service and consultant-led birth services at Furness general hospital and the Royal Lancaster infirmary remain unchanged.
The NHS is facing chronic workforce shortages, including in maternity services. Bringing in the staff we need will take time, but this is an absolute priority for this Government. We are committed to growing workforce capacity as quickly as possible to meet local needs and achieve safe staffing levels.
NHS England is responsible for allocating funding to integrated care boards to support them in commissioning services for their local population. The formula for allocating funding reflects the aim of ensuring equal opportunity of access for equal need and must also reflect the duty on NHS England to reduce inequalities between patients with respect to their ability to access services and with respect to the outcomes they achieve.
This formula determines a target allocation or “fair share” for each area, based on a complex assessment of factors such as demography, morbidity, deprivation and the unavoidable cost of providing services in different areas. It is based on independent academic research and is overseen by an independent external group, the Advisory Committee on Resource Allocation, which provides advice to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and the chief executive of NHS England.
Allocations will therefore differ depending on the exact combinations of these factors in each area, as well as how quickly an area can be moved towards its target allocation each year, determined by our convergence—previously “pace-of-change”—rules. This process aims to be transparent and to ensure that changes in allocations do not result in the destabilising of local health economies.
We are aware of the challenges in terms of providing access to healthcare, including maternity services, in rural areas across England due to infrastructure and transport links. As a result, targeted adjustment is made to target funding at integrated care boards to meet the unavoidably higher costs of remote hospital sites, where the costs are higher because the level of activity is too low for the hospital to operate at full efficiency.
Allocations for maternity services are included within integrated care boards’ core services allocations, and it is therefore for local systems to determine how this is apportioned across core services, including on maternity. Local commissioners are responsible for ensuring services are designed to meet the needs of their local population, in line with objectives and priorities outlined in the three-year delivery plan for maternity and neonatal services.