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Care Opinion

Shortage of midwives drop in clinics

Posted By seabirth

"Shortage of midwives drop in clinics"

About: Cannock Chase Hospital / Maternity care South Staffordshire PCT

(as the patient),

The published drop in clinics in some areas are no longer running.

Last week I visited 2 drop in clinics to be told due to lack of funding they were no longer on and had not been for 3 months - but they are advertised on the web and also still on the sheets at local doctors' surgeries.

My doctor has advised me the drop in clinic at my doctors' is normally booked up 2 weeks in advance, therefore the only one available is the friday afternoon at Cannock Chase hospital. On Friday I went, the queue/wait was approx 1 hour 30min. There were not enough chairs for the pregnant ladies who were in the corridor, some standing for over an hour.

The clinic went well past the 4pm deadline. On talking to some ladies there, many felt they were ushered in and out and due to the swelling ranks of ladies waiting felt rushed out, some not getting seen to as there was not enough time - can this be addressed? More midwives, more chairs to sit on, a few magazines?

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Responses

Response from Head of Patient Experience, Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust 12 years ago
Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust

Submitted on 07/04/2012 at 13:27
Published on Care Opinion on 08/04/2012 at 16:19

Dear "seabirth"

Thank you for taking the time to post your comments. I am sorry to hear that you were dissatisfied when accessing our maternity service recently. I apologise for the fact that your experience was poor. We really try hard to improve our services based on the comments we receive from our patients.

A small number of drop in clinics have been discontinued due to low attendance. I am sorry that there would appear to have been some error on communicating this to our colleagues in the primary sector.

Matron informs me that there are still drop in clinics available for women to attend in addition to the clinics which are held at the GP surgeries. The team leads for each area have been asked to ensure that an updated list of drop in clinics is circulated as a matter of urgency. Matron will also ensure an updated list of existing drop in clinics are made available to all GP surgeries.

There is also an ongoing review of the services being offered at drop in clinics to ensure that they run both effectively and efficiently and that the ladies attending are as comfortable as possible.

Wishing you all the best with your pregnancy.

Kind Regards

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