New maternity hub will transform care for new and expectant mums

The Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) has set up a midwifery suite in the St Augustine’s Healthy Living Centre building on Colombia Way, North Lynn.

The Maple Suite will provide antenatal and post-natal care for women and families in the King’s Lynn locality, reducing the need to attend routine appointments in an acute hospital setting. A similar successful suite has already opened at the hospital’s North Cambridgeshire site.

Its team, which consists of 13 midwives and two senior maternity support workers, will initially run three clinics, on five days a week with plans to expand their services in the future.

Lead midwife for the Maple Community Team, Sarah Roberts, cuts the red ribbon to formally open the suite (Image: QEH)

Karen Warrington, project manager from Norfolk and Waveney Local Maternity System, said: “The suite will benefit pregnant women and their families greatly, as this community service offers more flexibility, is more accessible, and provides all the resources in one place.

“The Maple Suite is part of a long-term plan to transform maternity services and provide ‘continuity of carer’, where women and families are looked after by the same midwife throughout their pregnancy.

" For the future, our plans are to expand into the ground floor of the building, and provide further community maternity services including antenatal classes, smoking cessation support, screening services, Consultant clinics and perinatal mental health consultations.”

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Sarah Roberts, Maple Team lead midwife, said: “The launch of the Maple Suite is a fantastic opportunity to be working together under one roof as we continue to prepare for continuity of care .

“We are familiar with the St Augustine ’s building as we have been using a clinic room here for many years, but the formation of the suite has meant we have expanded into three further clinic rooms upstairs.

The new clinic rooms at the Maple Suite in King's Lynn (Image: QEH)

“Eventually, we would love to be able to offer services such as hypnobirthing classes and a breast feeding drop-in as we continue to develop the suite.”

Amanda Price-Davey, head of midwifery at QEH, said: “This is a substantial step forwards towards the trust’s ambition of delivering a new model of maternity care where women and families will have continuity of the midwife caring for them."

The EDP has launched a petition calling for the QEH to be replaced with a new hospital. To sign it, go to https://tinyurl.com/t4xm78w2.