Recent news
Add your support in getting South Bristol Birth Centre off the
ground and in the promotion of home birth in Bristol
3 March 2010
BCB is now working hard at getting South Bristol Birth Centre included in the plans for South Bristol Hospital. We need a birth centre in South Bristol so that women in the area can labour and give birth with midwives near their own homes. Please send your support for South Bristol Birth Centre to us at info@birthcentrebristol.org.uk as soon as possible. Please ask NHS Bristol why nothing is happening now, in Phase 1 for South Bristol Hospital, to get plans for this birth centre off the ground.
Plans roll on smoothly for Cossham Birth Centre with committed contribution from BCB.
The Midwifery Services Liaison Committee will hold a home birth workshop on Monday 15 March from 11am-1pm at the YMCA Marsden Road, Clevedon BS21 7NW. Please contact Noshin.Emamiannaeini@bristolpct.nhs.uk if you wish to attend and comment on how we can encourage and support women and midwives in the promotion of home birth.
Cossham Birth Centre will be ready in 2011
while South Bristol Birth Centre is well under discussion
20 September 2009
Three representatives from BCB continue to work with NHS colleagues on the Cossham Birth Centre Steering Group and its sub-groups. Cossham Birth Centre will be one of a number of new services to be included in the new Cossham Hospital and building commences early in 2010. With the design of the birth centre now finalised, marketing of this new midwife-led facility across Bristol has begun ahead of the official 2011 opening.
Meanwhile BCB is working with Bristol Primary Care Trust to ensure that South Bristol Birth Centre is included in Phase 2 of South Bristol Hospital at Hengrove, Phase 1 of which is now 'ready to go ahead'. Discussions for Phase 2 will begin in January 2010. During BCB's preliminary talks on Phase 2, Bristol PCT say that '...a birth centre could be in the rolling programme'. They are also currently looking at how Cossham Birth Centre has developed and will continue to look at its achievements and successes.
Two members of BCB Steering Group have been appointed onto the newly resurrected Maternity Services Liaison Committee (MSLC). This is an independent forum of service users and health professionals, which will review, plan and improve services for pregnant women and their families. This committee will meet four times a year, with lunch and a creche provided. Those interested in being involved should send an email to Noshin.Emamiannaeini@bristolpct.nhs.uk at Bristol PCT. BCB will have a robust presence on this body and will make sure that one of the recommendations made by Bristol's Maternity Review is implemented - an increase in the number of midwife-led birth settings in Bristol in the form of midwife-led, community-based birth centres.