The CfC notes that the health status inequalities summarised in the report are highly relevant to the drivers of maternal and neonatal care complexity, and so are therefore also of healthcare need, with babies born to Black mothers or people in NCL having up to two-and-a-half times the rate of admission to a neonatal unit as babies of white ethnicity. [...] Although these parts of the maternity pathway are not part of the current acute care reconfiguration proposals, there may be rich opportunities inherent within the proposals to improve the integration of acute and community care aspects of the maternity pathway, including better signposting and referral of women and people to appropriate additional services during the acute and obstetrician or mid. [...] For instance, the statement in the PCBC that “over half of all births in NCL in 2019–20 were in the 40% most deprived areas” is potentially misleading as it implies a significant geographic skew in the share of NCL births between LSOAs, whereas it rather reflects the fact that just over 51% of the total population and 54% of the female population of child bearing age live in neighbourhoods of NCL. [...] The rate of births to women of childbearing age that year was also 31% higher in Brent than for the NCL population.28 These figures relate to the demographics and socio-economics of the entirety of Brent, so may not reflect the specific parts of Brent most affected by the proposals under option A.29 Mapped data presented in the Interim IIA suggests that further analysis on those areas of Brent may. [...] Although NCL is consulting the local population on the use of the physical space that would potentially be freed up by the closure, representatives of the ICB confirmed that in practice the level of use of the birthing unit in recent years – coupled with the fact staff nominally engaged at the Edgware unit both also provided the home birth service and in addition were frequently diverted to Barnet.
- Pages
- 59
- Published in
- United Kingdom
