Merging our maternity care
University Hospitals Dorset's (UHD) maternity teams have completed their final step in moving across all services to Poole Hospital.
The antenatal clinic based at Royal Bournemouth Hospital closed its doors for the last time on Friday 16 September, with UHD launching a new combined antenatal clinic and maternity triage service from St Mary's Maternity Unit in Poole earlier this week.
The move is the result of a major £250m transformation of NHS services for Dorset, which will see Royal Bournemouth Hospital provide a complete package of maternity services from its new BEACH Building (Births, Emergency care, Critical care and child Health), due to open in 2024.
Until that time, all antenatal appointments and in-hospital birthing options will operate from the Poole site. The antenatal team will offer telephone and virtual appointments to those patients who do not wish to, or are unable to, travel to the Poole site.
Patients requiring examinations from their clinical teams, scans or blood tests, will be required to attend antenatal appointments at the Poole maternity site.
Christine Smith, UHD's inpatient maternity matron, said: "A huge amount of behind the scenes work has taken place in streamlining clinics for pregnancy. The clinical and transformation teams on both sites are to be commended for their work and support of each other during this project, which signifies the first phase of merging maternity care across Bournemouth and Poole into one organisation."
Kerry Taylor, UHD's head of midwifery, said: "Bringing services together on one site will provide improved access to care on one site, with all of the antenatal team on hand to support women throughout their pregnancy.
"Mothers-to-be will have the opportunity to give birth to their child on the same site they have been visiting throughout their pregnancy.
"With all antenatal staff working together as one team, there will be more staff to support antenatal services, greater consultant and midwife supervision and combined training.
"Our team look forward to welcoming women to the Poole maternity unit in September 2022 with mothers-to-be receiving any appropriate clinic alteration letters in the near future."
