Dr Gray's maternity service claims after damning safety review
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CAMPAIGNERS on a mission to have consultant-led maternity services restored in Moray claim NHS Grampian has run down the Dr Gray's unit as part of a deliberate plan going back years.
Keep MUM campaigners voiced concerns this week that they fear it has been a plan for years to send Moray women to Aberdeen's planned Baird Family Unit to give birth.
They have challenged NHS Grampian chiefs to "fight their corner" at a public meeting in Elgin after a damning safety review of the Dr Gray's Hospital unit went public this week – a report which provoked anger among campaigners who claim it is biased.
NHS Grampian said today the challenges at Dr Gray's were "unrelated" to the The Baird Family Hospital project.
Keep MUM has called for clarity and claimed the safety review was the latest tactic in what they see as NHS Grampian's resistance to restoring the unit to full strength. The unit was downgraded in 2018 from consultant-led to midwifery-led due to staffing problems.
Keep MUM stated: "The current maternity unit in Aberdeen is to be replaced by the Baird Family Unit. The project is delayed and costing millions more than originally estimated.
"More than one source in Aberdeen has now told us that it was always intended that the Baird Family Unit would take at least half of Moray births – approximately 500-600 births.
"The planning of this project goes back several years, so the suspicion is that the aim was always to downgrade our unit and send the majority of Moray women to Aberdeen to give birth."
They added: "These same sources in Aberdeen have further said that the lack of junior doctors in Elgin created an opportunity for NHS Grampian to downgrade the unit in July 2018. This all fits in with the Grampian-wide maternity services review in 2012 when downgrading Elgin to a midwife-led unit was also an option on the table but wasn’t acted upon because of the potential public outcry.
"Given that NHS Grampian had absolutely no intention of restoring the maternity unit, it must have been a shock to them to be told by Jeane Freeman (health secretary) in August 2018 that they must restore the consultant service.
"Since then they have done everything possible not to restore the unit including the recent fiasco of the biased safety review.
"If our sources have got this wrong, then it’s up to NHS Grampian to argue their corner – ideally at the Elgin public meeting which we’ve called for."
An NHS Grampian spokewoman said today: "NHS Grampian is happy to provide accurate information with regard to planning for The Baird Family Hospital and relevant connections to the maternity service provision in the Moray area, based around Dr Gray’s Hospital.
"Planning for The Baird Family Hospital commenced in 2015 and the design of this new facility, to provide for the north of Scotland, will include modern accommodation to support all clinical services, including maternity, gynaecology, breast screening and neonatal provision. In addition to this, the board has committed to investment in facilities at Dr Gray’s, Inverurie and Peterhead as part of the delivery of the NHS Grampian Maternity Strategy.
"This project will provide an important part of the NHS Grampian Maternity Strategy by replacing Aberdeen Maternity Hospital. It is fully supportive of the desire to keep families together and to provide care in as local a setting as possible. The design will be flexible and adaptable to meet potential future changes in service provision, for any of the clinical service to be accommodated in the new build.
"The current staffing and service challenges in Dr Gray’s Hospital are therefore unrelated to the The Baird Family Hospital project."
The health secretary visited Elgin this month after it emerged the spring 2020 deadline for the return of full maternity services would be missed. NHS Grampian is revisiting the action plan, agreed by Ms Freeman last May, in light of changes in national guidance around staffing, ongoing recruitment challenges and the externally-led safety review, which found a "Best Start hub" of midwifery-led care could provide a safe and sustainable model for Moray.
Ms Freeman called for NHS Grampian to have the amended plan back to her by the end of March.
The Dr Gray's Safety Review can be found at https://foi.nhsgrampian.org/globalassets/foidocument/foi-public-documents1---all-documents/dr-grays-document.pdf
