Maternity boss 'confident' as unit reopens

The head of a maternity ward says she has full confidence that patients will be safe as it reopens.

Maternity services and the Special Care Baby Unit at Yeovil District Hospital in Somerset closed in May 2025 after the Care Quality Commission highlighted safety concerns over staffing, equipment and learning from serious incidents.

Somerset NHS Foundation Trust said it had addressed the concerns by recruiting staff, combining workforces with Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton, and improving its facilities and training systems.

Professor Deirdre Fowler, chief nurse and chief midwife at the trust, said: "We are really confident we have done what we need to do to really meet the standards we need."

Fowler added that she understood the anxiety felt by expectant parents and acknowledged the importance of listening to healthcare regulators and the community.

"It's really important that we have strengthened governance and leadership and that we are able to recognise risk and respond really quickly," she said.

A former NHS inspector previously told the BBC that the closure of the maternity unit could have been avoided if she had been listened to.

Amanda Ford, a registered nurse and midwife, said she witnessed "appalling care" and a baby death that should not have occurred while she worked for the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch in the region from 2019 until 2020.

"Yeovil was one of my first units I was asked to go and investigate some incidents," she said.

"Within a month… I just was appalled. One was a baby death. That's a death that shouldn't have occurred – of a very healthy baby.

"One was a lady who was put through labour, who basically shouldn't have been labouring, and she was lucky to have survived that and her baby survived," she added.

Danielle, who is expecting her second child in July, said she had been unaware that the unit in Yeovil had been closed for safety reasons.

The mother from Horsington gave birth to her son Leo at the unit five years ago.

Speaking at an antenatal check-up, she said: "I was completely oblivious and I am delighted they are opening again because it's a lovely hospital."

She added that the reopening would help to reassure expectant parents that they were "safe" and "in good hands".

Sally Bryant, director of midwifery at Somerset NHS Foundation Trust, said staff had worked "really hard" to improve the service since the closure.

"Many staff have come across to our Musgrove site to work and some others to neighbouring trusts.

"We have worked really hard on strengthening leadership, aligning our guidelines... we are very lucky that lots of people want to come and work with us," she said.