Stillbirth rate falls to lowest level

The rate of stillbirths in Shropshire has fallen to its lowest ever level, it has been revealed.

According to a report set to be presented to Shropshire Council on Monday, the number has fallen below the national and regional average.

It comes just days after the Care Quality Commission said it had concerns about midwifery services at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust.

The Trust was put in special measures in November, meaning inspectors no longer believed it was capable of running itself.

When that happened, it was already reporting weekly to the CQC over standards in the hospitals’ maternity and emergency care.

SaTH is also being investigated over baby deaths, with the scope of a review widened to include the concerns of 250 families.

Now Fiona Ellis, local maternity system programme manager, will tell the council’s health and well-being board that significant progress is being made.

But she said work needs to be carried out “at pace” to continue to meet national targets.

She said: “In 2018, the maternity service provider is reporting the lowest ever recorded rate of stillbirth for the Trust, with a rate of 3.7/1000.

“This compares to a national crude stillbirth rate of 3.9/1000 (latest figure from 2016) and the West Midlands rate of 4.3/1000 (latest figure from 2016).”

In 2015, the stillbirth rate in the county was 3.87 per 1,000 total births, a fall from 4.20 per 1,000 total births in 2013.

Ms Ellis said a number of initiatives has led to the drop.

She said: “SaTH has commenced additional ultrasound scanning clinics in Sutton Hill.

“The additional scan time enables women to undergo serial scans in pregnancy close to home.

“This enables more women to be able to more easily access these scans and helps maternity professionals to detect foetal growth restriction in women who wouldn’t otherwise have attended these scans.”

She added: “In December 2018, a system was introduced on delivery suite that enables clinicians to view the heart trace and progress of foetuses during labour from outside the labour room.

“The advantage of this central CTG telemetry is that there can be many eyes and opinions viewing the CTG (Cardiotocography – which shows the fetal heart rate and uterine contractions).

“Evidence has shown that this approach improves safety for the foetus. The CTG traces are also archived enabling them to be used for teaching and audit.

“Reducing the high smoking in pregnancy rates locally has been identified as a key factor in reducing the stillbirth rate.

“The national direction is that rates of smoking in pregnancy are expected to be lower than 11 per cent.

“As a local maternity service we are currently reporting 16.3 per cent overall  with Shropshire reporting 13.8 per cent and Telford and Wrekin reporting 19.7 per cent.

“A number of projects relating to reducing smoking in pregnancy have been launched.”

She added: “Steady progress is being made in relation to delivering the required transformation described in Better Births.

“However, greater pace is required if all of the transformation targets are to be met by March 2021.

“The challenging context in which local maternity service is operating is having an impact upon the scale and pace of transformation achieved to date.”

The meeting will take place at Shirehall, Shrewsbury at 9.30am on Monday.