Still time to share your experience of Oxfordshire maternity services
09/04/2019
This article is more than five years old.
Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group (OCCG) is asking approximately 16,000 women who have given birth in one of the maternity units in Oxfordshire, Warwickshire, Reading and Swindon in 2017-2019 to to share their experiences of those services.
Details have been sent directly through the post to women inviting them to take part in a survey, and there's still time to respond by Monday 15 April 2019.
Their feedback will help OCCG understand what parents think is important, what worked for them and what could be better, as well as how changes made at the Horton General Hospital in Banbury have affected them.
All Oxfordshire women who have given birth during the two-year period have been asked to complete the survey. In addition, women who live in south Northamptonshire and south Warwickshire have also been invited as they live in the Horton General Hospital catchment area.
The survey asks questions about their experiences of labour and giving birth and the choices they made. This includes travelling to hospital, car parking and location of services.
Catherine Mountford, Director of Governance at OCCG, said: "We urge all women who have given birth since October 2016 to take part and complete the survey with as much information as possible.
"The debate around the future of maternity services in Banbury has been going on for some time. People have strong feelings about the closure of the Horton obstetrics unit and its impact on families in the north of the county and beyond.
"We are looking again at the options and need to take account of the experience of women from across Oxfordshire as well as those living in the Horton catchment area. We need to understand if the experience of women from all these areas is similar or different and how the changes at the Horton have affected them. That's why this work is so important: so we can get the fullest picture from the people who are at the heart of maternity services - women and their families."
The results of the survey will be used by OCCG when it makes decisions about maternity services at the Horton General Hospital later in 2019. The obstetric unit at the hospital was closed on safety grounds in October 2016 because of long-term difficulties in recruiting suitably qualified doctors.
People can find out more about this work by visiting the OCCG website www.oxfordshireccg.nhs.uk