New midwife arrangement for Kings

[simonethebeaver]

As it's come up on here already a few times, and the subject was discussed at yesterday's public meeting of the Maternity Services Liaison Committee, I thought it would be useful to post about the new arrangements.

From the end of September, there will be new arrangements for community midwifery. The Kings area will be split into four, and two teams will operate in each. One team will be caseloading midwives, the other community midwives. The caseloading midwives will be the Oakwood team, who will be renamed Juniper. They will continue to take 18 women a month for caseloading care. Referrals will be through postcode via a central point, rather than through any GP connection. Priority will be given to low risk women, those wanting a home birth (even if not necessarily low risk) and women with mental health issues. All other women will be cared for by the community midwives. This team will be called Ivy Green. Antenatal appointments will be in the community rather than at Midwives House. They will also run a postnatal clinic for women well enough to leave the house. Over time it's hoped these midwives will also carry out home births, but for now those will be covered by the Juniper team. None of the Kings homebirth teams will exist.

Every woman will have a named midwife throughout pregnancy, so providing more continuity of care for those not under the caseloading team. Members of the community team will provide staffing for the midwifery unit at Kings and also telephone triage services, so more women will see familiar midwives during the birth period.

There will also be a team for high risk women across the trust working in the community. One of that team should be working on the labour ward most of the time. The only women who will receive antenatal care in the hospital will be high risk women referred from out of area.

Women giving birth in October will remain in their current care, so for example would still be delivered by The Lanes. Other women should be hearing what will happen to them from their existing midwives. Kings is trying to improve continuity of care across the board and provide equal access to services across the whole of the trust. Unfortunately in ED this means some loss of caseloading provision as we have up till now had two teams based here. Hopefully the improvement in community care all round will compensate for this.

I hope this isn't too garbled and is useful for people. I don't work for Kings so I may not be able to answer questions - this is a download of information given to the lay representatives at the MSLC.

[patt1980]

Thanks for sharing - very useful information.

[LadyT]

Hi can anyone explain what the system is for midwives now in the Nunhead area? I just got told to self refer online to Kings and got a letter about a scan but nothing about anything else yet.

I was with the Brierly last time but I know they don't exist anymore. I won't be having a home birth for a whole range of reasons but does that mean there is no way to have caseload care?

Also - Simonethebeaver says above that there is a team for high risk women, does anyone know if this is anyone who's classed as high risk?

[devsdev]

I self referred to Kings and went to the midwife team based at Kings. All my appointments were there for both pregnancies. My second pregnancy became high risk and in the end I spent a lot of time in the MAU or on the Antenatal Ward - the midwifes were, as a whole, very lovely.

[returnofthenit]

Hi this is really helpful. The changes seemed really confusing: I wanted to book with Brierley again and worked out they are now basically the same but going under the name Birchtree and can be reached on 02034090704 option 2. Still home birth and caseloading! The caseload teams are all still there and similar, just different names and different geographical areas.