Homerton Hospital's postnatal ward has unfortunately become notorious in recent years for being an uncomfortable and distressing environment for new mothers.
Overheating is such a problem on the ward that patient representatives are hearing repeated stories of women and the staff around them fainting in the hours after giving birth. Newborns also struggle in these conditions finding it difficult to feed or stay awake. A lack of dimmable lighting means that many new parents complained of being unnable to rest, recover and start properly bonding with their babies when they were at their most vulnerable in the hours after giving birth.

Hospital bosses have been told about these urgent problems repeatedly but they have failed to provide funding to improve these conditions for new mothers and birthing people. This cannot be acceptable. 

Compaints heard by patient representatives about the postnatal ward were clearly supported last year by an inspection report from the Care Quality Commission (CQC). Inspectors visited in June 2023 and found that care at Homerton Hospital was generally good but that the maternity services required improvement on the question of whether they were safe for new mothers. 

As part of the inspection people were asked to share their experiences. There were 94 responses and 79 of them were complaints. While many were positive about their experiences of care in the antenatal period and during labour, 56 responses "cited poor postnatal care". 

Inspectors found that "some women and birthing people felt unsupported during the postnatal period on the ward", as well as problems with the rooms used to care for families who had experienced bereavement. 

For over a decade we have been told there is no budget or means to improve the conditions on the postnatal ward at Homerton. Enough is enough.

We are appealing to the hospital board to act now. Instances of mothers, babies and midwifes fainting due to overheating needs to be a thing of the past. Air conditioning and dimmable lighting must be installed on the postnatal ward in time for summer 2025.

The hours after birth are when nurturing and providing a safe and comfortable space is so important. Surely the right environment would aid recovery and provide mothers and babies with the best start and ultimately lead to better outcomes and reduced costs on the NHS down the line.