Rachel has published a detailed, comprehensive and realistic report into how a maternity service could be returned to the Alexandra Hospital.
Back in 2019, Rachel was re-elected with an overwhelming mandate to fight to return a maternity and children’s service to the town’s hospital.
Since then, and despite the impact of the pandemic, she has been doing everything she can to deliver on the promise she has made.
Published today (July 19th), Rachel’s report called ‘Returning a maternity service to the Alexandra Hospital,’ clearly makes the case for Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust to provide a maternity service at Redditch’s hospital.
The report looks at how maternity services are provided in other parts of England, including Gloucestershire, which has a similar population size to Worcestershire, where maternity services are provided at three hospitals.
The comprehensive document also sets out how record Government investment in the NHS and the recruitment of more doctors, nurses and midwives supports the return of a maternity service to the Alex.
Rachel said:
“Ever since I was re-elected in 2019, I have been doing everything I can to ensure women in Redditch can once again give birth at the Alex.
“During the emergency phase of the pandemic there were times where it would not have been appropriate of me to raise this campaign when rightly the Trust was focussed on saving as many lives as possible.
“However, the work behind the scenes never stopped and this has culminated in this comprehensive, detailed and realistic report which forms part of my long-term plan for the Alex which will also be published in due course.
“The report clearly makes the case for how the Acute Trust can once again provide a maternity service at our hospital, ensuring a majority of women in Redditch can give birth at their local hospital.
“With record funding going into our NHS, with more doctors, nurses and midwives being recruited, with the Acute Trust now out of special measures and after the Government wrote off the Trust’s historic debt, this can only support the case for this service to be returned.
“My report has been sent to the Chief Executive of our Acute Trust and he must now respond in detail to the points that have been made in the report. I will also be holding an Alex Working Group meeting with the Trust to discuss this further.
“I’ve never promised it would be easy to return services to the Alex, but I’ve never given up on anything in my life and I’m not about to start now.”
A second report will follow into how Rachel believes paediatric services can be returned to the Alex.
“As well as a hospital where women can give birth again, I also want to see paediatric services returned to the Alex,” Rachel has said.
“I will be setting out how I think this can be achieved in a further report which also forms part of my long-term plan for the Alex.”
You can download the report below.
