I am writing to you, as you may have seen recent news reports about our maternity and neonatal services.
We are committed to providing high quality, inclusive, compassionate, and safe care to families who use our maternity services. I want to reassure you that there are more than 8,500 babies born each year at Leeds General Infirmary and St James’s Hospital, and the vast majority of births are safe and healthy.
Our staff work incredibly hard to provide the best possible care for everyone using our maternity and neonatal services. They are experienced and well-trained, caring, compassionate and dedicated. They provide a wide range of care for babies and patients including some of the most complex births and poorly babies.
As you may know, there is a national shortage of midwives, but in Leeds we have recently been successful in recruiting dozens of additional midwives to care for patients and their families. More midwives are joining us over the next few weeks.
We know a small number of families have described poor experiences, and we are deeply sorry for that. We have apologised to those families, and we have investigated the concerns they have raised with us.
We always take complaints and concerns raised by patients, families or staff very seriously. We are committed to continuously learning and improving our services, and would encourage you to share your experiences, positive or negative.
If you have a concern at any point, please do discuss it with the team providing your care, as they are the best people to help. However, if this is not possible or you feel unable to do so for whatever reason, please contact the PALS team on 0113 206 6261 or by email [email protected]. We would like to assure you that your concerns will be taken seriously.
We aim to provide the very best possible care to patients, babies and families from all the diverse communities in Leeds and across the region. We work with Leeds Maternity & Neonatal Voices Partnership (MNVP) to make improvements using feedback from the experiences of our patients.
MNVP parent representatives regularly visit our wards and departments to ask families about their experiences directly. Anyone wishing to get involved in the work of the MNVP is invited to contact: [email protected] or join their Facebook group.
If you need any further information please visit our website.
We also have social media pages dedicated to news, updates and health advice from the Maternity team at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, which you can follow at Facebook and Instagram.
Yours sincerely,
Prof. Phil Wood
Chief Executive – Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust