DUMBARTON MSP Jackie Baillie has challenged First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to keep her promise on protecting services at the Vale of Leven Hospital after a leaked document revealed proposals to close the Community Midwifery Unit.


Leaked plans from NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, which have been shared with the Reporter, show the health board wants to transfer all births from the Vale to the RAH in Paisley or the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in the south of Glasgow. This would be a move which, according to Ms Baillie, could mean no more babies are born at the Vale.


The closure would leave only ante and post-natal services at the Community Maternity Unit at the Vale of Leven Hospital.
According to Ms Baillie, NHSGGC needs to find savings of £69 million in 2016-17. And the transfer of birthing services from the Vale and Inverclyde Royal Infirmary would save £250,000.


The leaked final draft of the Local Delivery Plan blames the cut on a decrease in the number of local women choosing to give birth at the Vale of Leven, as it reveals only 38 woman chose to give birth there in the last 12 months.
The final draft of the plan will go before board members at the end of June after which, according to Ms Baillie, the document will go to the Scottish Government for approval.


In 2009 the Vision for the Vale was published and signed off by Nicola Sturgeon when she was Health Secretary. It promised to ensure that the Community Maternity Unit at the Vale was “sustained and promoted”.
First Minister Ms Sturgeon reaffirmed her support for the Vale ahead of the recent elections and promised not to approve any changes that would run contrary to the Vision for the Vale.


Now Ms Baillie wants Ms Sturgeon and the SNP government to keep their promise to local women and scrap plans to remove births from the Vale.

Speaking at First Minister’s Question Time, Ms Baillie said: “Prior to the election, the First Minister and the health minister dismissed concerns about cuts to services at the Vale of Leven hospital, Inverclyde hospital, the Royal Alexandra hospital in Paisley and Lightburn hospital in Glasgow as, somehow, scaremongering. They promised that the SNP government would not approve any changes that would run counter to the Vision for the Vale, as set out in the document before me.
“I have been given a leaked document – the final draft of the local delivery plan for NHS GGC – which lists the closure of the Vale of Leven maternity unit. Will the First Minister keep her promise to my constituents so that babies will continue to be born at the Vale?”

In response, Ms Sturgeon said she had never seen the document and she would not support any proposals to cut services.
She added: “As I have made clear, and as the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport has made clear, we will not approve proposals that run counter to the vision for the Vale.
“I am not aware of the document that Jackie Baillie has – to the best of my knowledge I have not seen it and I would be happy to receive a copy of it – but I am sure that what she has just read out are, at most, proposals. Let me be very clear about this government’s commitment to the vision for the Vale: we will continue to take forward that commitment.”

In response, Cllr Gail Robertson of the SNP stressed there have been no formal proposals in relation to the maternity service.
She added: “I have always been clear that I support our local services and would stress that it was the SNP government who stepped in to safeguard our hospitals future where the previous Labour government had been intent on closing the Vale.
“Ms Baillie has used our local hospital as a political football for far too long and I want to see what efforts she has made to actively promote our services rather than continually undermine them to score political points.
“I’d also like to know whether she will be putting pressure on the Labour councillors who sit on the Greater Glasgow and Clyde Health Board to ensure they deliver on the Vision for the Vale commitments.”

A spokeswoman for NHSGGC said the board is planning to engage with the public and patients on a range of service changes, which includes a “redesign” of midwifery-led services, adding: “Formal proposals will go to the August meeting of the board and, if approved, the proposals will then be the subject of a full public engagement with an expectation that a final decision will be reached by the board at the end of the year.”
“That decision will take account of the outcome of the current national review of maternity services.
“When the Vision for the Vale was approved in 2009, this included a commitment to sustain and promote the service for a period of three years to encourage more women to give birth locally at the unit. In spite of this, the number of births at the unit has continued to decline, to the current figure of around 60 a year.”