HEALTH chiefs have given more details around the suspension of home births in Gloucestershire.

Home births were initially suspended for two weeks after safety concerns were raised by Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust staff.

The need to train up new midwives and a review of the model of care in maternity were behind the longer suspension of home births.

Cllr Rebecca Trimnell (Lib Dem, Hempsted and Westgate) asked about the temporary suspension of home births at last week’s meeting of the health and overview scrutiny committee at Gloucestershire County Council.

She said: “How long will it take for the trust to develop a new staffing model to allow home births to continue?”

“Safety is paramount and I would not want there to be home births if it is unsafe.”

Matt Holdaway, the chief nurse and director of quality at the Gloucestershire Hospitals Trust said there were the equivalent of 245 full-time midwives, the most there had ever been in the county.

He said many of them were junior midwives who needed the assistance of more experienced colleagues to help women give birth at home.

“We need to develop our workforce to gain that experience.

“We are seeing an increase in the number of women choosing to give birth at home outside of medical guidance.

“These are women that choose to have a baby in their own home that normally we would risk assess and want to see them at the very least in a midwifery-led unit or in our obstetric-led unit in Gloucestershire Royal.”

Home births were suspended for six months to look at the processes and systems that are in place and to change the model of home births.

A complete review of what Gloucestershire mothers want and need would be undertaken, he said.