Maternity Services

Helen Grant Excerpts

Tuesday 26th October 2010 Commons Chamber

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

In a few months, if the current plans proceed, there will be no consultancy-led maternity service at Maidstone hospital in my constituency, which means that every year, 2,000 mothers will be put at greater risk, and lethal consequences could follow. Maidstone is the county town of Kent, and is a growth point area. There are many areas of multiple deprivation, and we have high rates of teenage pregnancy, so we need a full maternity service. Our community has spoken out loud and clear against the reconfiguration plan. Thousands have signed petitions saying no. Our borough and county councillors have said no. The business community has said no. As a local resident and mother of two, I have said no, and in a survey with a 77% response rate, 97% of our GPs also said no.

We are not people who are resistant to change. We are not asking for anything new; we do not want anything extra. We simply want to retain our existing services, and make safe and genuine choices for our people. Choice, we are told by the trust, will be available to Maidstone mothers for the first time, but the choice is between a midwifery-led birthing unit with six beds for the county town of Kent, serving 250,000 people, or travelling to Pembury, Medway, Ashford or Dartford. However, mums with complications will have no local choice, and neither will mums needing an epidural, mums needing a caesarean section or mums who just want to know that they will have the best expertise and equipment available to them when their baby decides to come. The trust says that patients will vote with their feet, but it does not tell people that, if they want to remain in Maidstone, they cannot do so.

I have with me a bundle of letters to the Secretary of State for Health signed by more than 100 GPs in the Maidstone area. They say 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. Those GPs also say—this is really worrying—that it is a near certainty that some babies born in Maidstone may die or suffer brain damage while en route to Pembury or elsewhere. They are our GPs: they know exactly what they are talking about. They have voted. They have put their names down and they are saying no. They are talking about our mothers, our children and our babies. The campaign has been going for about two and a half to three years while I have been involved. It is about community, choice and safety. The evidence against downgrading is powerful and profound. The reconfiguration plan is very wrong and dangerous, and it will lead to fatalities. I urge the Secretary of State to reject the reconfiguration plan when he considers the matter imminently.