Baby Care :: New focus for children and maternity services

The way maternity and children’s services are delivered is going to have to change, if we want to provide the best possible care for mothers, babies and children, argued Dr Sheila Shribman, the UK’s National Childrens’ Tsar.

Publishing two reports into the future of children and maternity services, ‘Making it Better for Mother and Baby’ and ‘Making it better for children and young people’, Dr Shribman said:

“Our top priority is to provide safe, high quality care for all women, children, and their families as a whole. We want to offer parents and families world class care and facilities based around their specific needs. To get to this point, the reality is we are going to need to organise ourselves differently, with easier access to midwives in the community and more choice of where to give birth.

“Delivering the best possible services for all women and their babies will mean that changes will have to take place. This is about changing and improving services, not closures or cuts but sometimes it will mean difficult decisions”.

Health Secretary, Patricia Hewitt said:

“I welcome this report. Mothers and their partners need to be confident that they can choose how and where to have their babies, safe in the knowledge that everyone is working to deliver the safest birth possible in a high quality and responsive service.

“This report sets out how we can consider developing our maternity services to ensure this is possible everywhere.”


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