Yeovil maternity services are being closed due to safety concerns raised by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). This is due to a lack of neonatal doctors for newborn babies. The trust needs to appoint more doctors to make it a safe service, instead of closing the maternity service, the Taunton neonatal unit should be helping to keep the service running and safe for patients.  

Yeovil Maternity unit was a great service and local to the population, after the closure, patients will have longer journeys to get to neighbouring maternity services putting mums and babies at risk. Furthermore, in addition to suffering longer journeys to get to neighbouring maternity services, the other options are arguably worse. This is because, Musgrove Park Maternity services was also rated inadequate with expired baby milk being found in fridges as well as Dorchester hospital’s maternity unit requiring improvement. While Bath’s Maternity unit is outstanding, facing hour long drives to get there and the lack of public transport in Somerset makes this an impractical solution.

Therefore, in the interest of patient safety and experience Yeovil maternity services must be saved. We must appoint more neonatal doctors and get help from neonatal doctors at Musgrove park in the mean time.  

They say it will be closed for 6 months, but in many cases such as Okehampton Maternity Services, they never reopen. We can’t let that happen to Yeovil Maternity Services as that could seriously impact patient safety with other maternity services being over 45 minutes away and public transport being scarce. This is not an adequate service for the 180,000 residents who are dependent on YDH.