Latest news with #JulieHogg
BBC News
20-06-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Births at St Mary's Birth Centre paused for 'up to six months'
Births at a baby unit in Leicestershire will be temporarily halted from next month."Long-standing challenges" at the St Mary's Birth Centre, in Melton, have "worsened in recent months", University Hospitals of Leicester (UHL) NHS Trust said on include difficulties in achieving "safe" staffing levels, with about 30% of the team "unavailable due to maternity leave, sickness, or planned absences", a spokesperson said. The trust said it would be pausing births and in-patient postnatal care at the centre from 7 July. 'Difficult but necessary' The spokesperson told the Local Democracy Reporting Service there was "appropriate staffing in place" to maintain services until pause is expected to last for "up to" six months while work is carried out to determine next steps. Staff at the unit - where 1% of births in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland take place - will be redeployed during this time. Community antenatal and non-inpatient postnatal services, such as infant feeding support, in Melton will continue 21 individuals and families who have booked or expressed interest in using the centre after 7 July have been contacted, the spokesperson added. Julie Hogg, chief nurse at UHL, said: "Pausing births and in-patient care at St Mary's Birth Centre is a difficult but necessary step. "The decision is no reflection of the commitment and care offered by the St Mary's team. "We have appropriate staffing in place to keep these services running until 7 July, when the pause will come into effect."Last year, 92 births occurred at the unit, compared to 9,331 across the Leicester Royal Infirmary and Leicester General Hospital, UHL added.
BBC News
29-05-2025
- General
- BBC News
Level 2 baby care status reinstated at Kettering General Hospital
A neonatal unit has regained approval to care for some of the region's most premature babies, following improvements in staffing and a downgrade in September 2023, the unit at Kettering General Hospital has now been fully reapproved to operate as a Level 2 Local Neonatal Unit. This meant staff can once again care for babies born after 27 weeks of gestation, or 28 weeks for multiple births, who weigh more than 800 Hogg, University Hospitals of Northamptonshire chief nurse, said: "We are committed to ensuring our neonatal unit delivers the best possible care to babies and families in our local community and ensuring that care is tailored to their needs." The unit was temporarily downgraded to Level 1 in 2023, which meant it could only care for babies born after 32 weeks. Babies born earlier or who were very sick had to be sent to specialist Level 3 decision was made after regular safety checks and staff feedback showed the unit needed more senior doctors and extra then, the hospital has made several important improvements, including hiring two neonatal consultants, a lead nurse for governance, a data analyst, and seven additional also took part in extra training sessions, including team-based practice for emergencies like resuscitation and managing breathing problems. 'Dedicated work' Leadership at the unit has also been strengthened, and links with regional neonatal care networks have been than 70% of the nurses were fully trained to care for very premature and unwell babies, meeting national standards set by the British Association of Perinatal Hogg added: "Once again, we are able to deliver intensive care, high dependency care, and special care to babies born after 27 weeks of gestation or 28 weeks if a multiple birth."I want to take this opportunity to thank our teams for all of the dedicated work and effort that has gone into achieving the improvements that have enabled us to start delivering level 2 care once again." Follow Northamptonshire news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
BBC News
23-04-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Northampton hospital's A&E told to make urgent improvements
A hospital has been told to take urgent action to improve its emergency care following concerns about patient safety and waiting General Hospital (NGH) was issued with a formal improvement notice by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) following a two-day CQC found there were significant delays in ambulance handovers and patients' privacy was being compromised by the use of corridor said it "sincerely apologise to any patients and families who may have been affected". Hospital papers say the CQC inspection took place during a "particularly busy period" for to data from the University Hospitals of Northamptonshire Group (UHN) meeting earlier this month, there were almost 13,000 visits to NGH's A&E department throughout February, when the care watchdog's visit took place. A total of 528 patients waited over an hour to be transferred from ambulances to the emergency department during that month. The CQC found significant concerns with patient safety, extended stays in the emergency department and delays in ambulance watchdog said the privacy and dignity of patients was being put at risk due to the use of corridor issued a Section 29a notice, meaning that significant improvement was needed in the quality of health care and a timescale for action was to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, inspectors considered serving the hospital with a more serious Section 31 notice, but held back after NGH submitted a comprehensive action trust will now be kept under review until June to check that progress is being made. The hospital said it had already changed its procedures, including improving its discharge processes, increasing the checks on patients being looked after in corridors, and raising staffing chief nurse for the University Hospitals of Northamptonshire, Julie Hogg, said: "We fully acknowledge the concerns raised and sincerely apologise to any patients and families who may have been affected."Since the inspection, we have already taken a number of immediate steps to address the issues identified."We have also developed a comprehensive action plan aimed at delivering meaningful and sustainable improvements across our urgent and emergency care services and wider hospital systems." Follow Northamptonshire news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
