19 July 2018

Mums and their families will get to have their say on what the design of the new-look Shrewsbury Midwife Led Unit (MLU) will look like as part of the centre’s £400,000 upgrade.

Sarah Jamieson looks at the plans for the MLU with Mark Hassall, site manager with Bow Construction

The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SaTH), which runs the MLU at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital (RSH) agreed to the significant investment to tackle issues caused by the age of the building.

The MLU is based in the Copthorne Building at RSH but services had to be relocated to another part of the building in February after heavy winter snowfall caused damage to the roof.

As well as making repairs, SaTH has used the relocation as an opportunity to upgrade the MLU to improve services for mums, based on known issues and feedback from women about the environment.

Building work is already under way and is expected to continue until the late autumn. The refurbishment includes the replacement of the roof, improvements to facilities for our women, such as natural lighting in our birthing rooms, the addition of birthing couches, a more ‘home-from-home’ setting for our mothers to give birth and improved facilities for partners.

Sarah Jamieson, Head of Midwifery at SaTH, said: “We are delighted that we have been able to start work on upgrading our MLU at Shrewsbury. Because of the age of the building, we know that there have been some issues which our staff have been dealing with and others which our mums and families have told us about.

“Of course, we would have preferred not to have had the problem with the roof in the winter, but this has given us the opportunity to improve and update our facilities to ensure we can give our mums the best possible experience.

“As part of that, we will be asking families and staff to be part of the planning for internal improvements to the environment through our local Maternity Voices Partnership.

“If you would like to be involved you can email maternity.voices@nhs.net or contact Louise Macleod, Maternity Voices Development Co-ordinator, at louise.macleod5@nhs.net or by calling 07773 572739.

“I look forward to hearing their ideas and seeing them come to fruition.”