A sudden Yeovil maternity shutdown sparked concern for rural mothers and highlights deeper NHS staffing, planning and leadership failures
‘…work-related stress, reportedly caused by a lack of support, a toxic work culture and bullying from management.
Adam Dance, MP
On 19th May, Yeovil Hospital temporarily closed its inpatient maternity services, including its special care baby unit. The hospital is mainly used by South Somerset residents, but a quarter of their patients come from North Dorset. With the closure of a critical service, what happens now for the affected rural communities?
What happened at Yeovil?
In January 2025, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspected the acute paediatric service (the care of children and young people) and issued a Section 29 safety warning notice, calling for significant improvements. In addition, the hospital currently has high levels of sickness among senior paediatricians (the doctors specialising in children’s care) at Yeovil, which has caused big gaps in the medical rota.
Senior paediatricians from Musgrove Park Hospital are supporting the service at Yeovil, to ensure that paediatric inpatient and outpatient services remain open for those who need them. However, the special care baby unit (SCBU) could not be supported in the same way, and had to be temporarily closed on safety grounds.
The consequences of this action directly impacted the Yeovil Hospital inpatient maternity service because they now cannot care for any newborns who require care in a special care baby unit, or safely provide care during labour and birth at the Yeovil Maternity Unit.
Adam Dance, MP for Yeovil, secured a Commons Debate on 3rd June and outlined some of the challenges faced by staff on the Yeovil site: ‘“’The hospital trust’s leadership team says that high levels of sickness among senior hospital staff caused gaps in the rota, but I have been informed that those staff are off sick because of work-related stress, reportedly caused by a lack of support, a toxic work culture and bullying from management. That is not good enough. Clinicians have been working desperately hard to provide quality care and have been trying to work alongside management to improve the service, but they have found management unsupportive. It seems that the real issue is about management and about supporting and retaining staff.’
(you can watch the debate on ParliamentLive, or read the full transcript of the debate on Hansard)
Are there alternatives for expectant mums?
Although outpatient services remain in Yeovil, for those women planning to give birth and needing inpatient services, the options are Dorchester, Taunton, Bath or Salisbury. Naturally, the short notice has created anxiety with families and the wider community.
The number of births at Yeovil Hospital’s maternity unit is between 1,100 and 1,200 per year. The average occupancy rate of SCBU at Yeovil is 31%, with the average occupancy rate for the neonatal unit at Taunton at 60%. Those 1,200 births will now have to be absorbed elsewhere. Dorchester sees a similar number, averaging around 100 a month. A spokesperson said: ‘Dorset County Hospital is working closely with healthcare partners in Somerset to ensure that all women and birthing people can have the best experience of using our services. We are working to ensure we have the capacity to support all current and new service users’ needs. It is not anticipated that there will be any impact on current service users who are under the care of the maternity and neonatal team at Dorset County Hospital.’
Performance
The CQC inspected Yeovil Hospital in 2023, and published a report in May 2024, in which maternity services at Yeovil were described as ‘inadequate’. Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton was also listed as inadequate. Although Somerset NHS Foundation Trust stated these ratings were unrelated to the 2025 Section 29 notice, there have been concerns about staffing and safety for some time. Dorset County Hospital also received a grading of ‘Requires Improvement’ when they were inspected.
A spokesperson said: ‘Following the CQC inspection of maternity services in June 2023, Dorset County Hospital took immediate action to address the issues raised. Specialist advisors worked alongside our maternity team with a detailed improvement plan to take action on all the areas identified to ensure our service users get the high quality and safe services they rightly expect. While reporting some concerns following the inspection at the time, inspectors also praised staff for their levels of care, being focused on the needs of women receiving care, and for engaging well with women and people using the service. They found that women felt well cared for. A follow-up inspection report will be published in due course.’
One important measure in newborn care is the ATAIN score, which tracks how well full-term babies (born at or after 37 weeks) are kept out of SCBUs. The ATAIN programme works to reduce avoidable harm that might lead to these admissions, helping improve outcomes for babies, mothers and families – with lower scores showing better results. Dorset County Hospital has significantly improved its ATAIN score: ‘During 2024/25, our admission rate for term babies into the neonatal service was less than the national standard (no more than 5%). We are proud of this achievement – our priority is to ensure babies remain with their parents for their care, regardless of where that happens.’
Both the special care baby units at Taunton and Yeovil have similar ATAIN scores at 4.5%, and below the national average, which reflects positively on quality care from clinicians.
Why Wincanton matters
When services are moved, journey times are measured to assess the impact. Some people benefit, while others are inevitably left in a rural desert of services. When the travel times from Wincanton to Taunton, Bath and Dorchester are mapped, a car journey takes a minimum of 50 minutes – on a good day. That’s a long time if you are in labour. There’s a similar situation with Henstridge and Castle Cary. A journey that once took 25 to 30 minutes to Yeovil is now significantly longer. Public transport is virtually non-existent … and babies don’t wait for rural bus timetables.
The area around Wincanton and Castle Cary is overflowing with planning applications – meaning more people moving to the area, and an increased demand on critical services. Surely this should mean that core services should be available to meet housing need?
Adam Dance is worried: ‘I’m deeply concerned that local families have lost access to maternity care close to home, and that the decision was made with very little notice or consultation. The short timeframe caused real distress for expectant parents and staff alike, and I believe it could have been handled far more transparently.
‘The issues highlighted by the CQC were serious and needed to be addressed, but the Trust had several months between the inspection and the announcement to properly engage with staff, stakeholders and the public. That didn’t happen. We should expect better planning and communication when it comes to something as critical as maternity care. More broadly, years of under-investment in workforce planning and training across the NHS have left services stretched to breaking point. This closure is a symptom of a wider system in crisis, and I’ll keep working to make sure our area is not left behind in finding a sustainable solution.’
However, the situation at Yeovil is a creeping crisis in critical public services across the South West and nationally. Why are some departments just one consultant’s retirement away from collapse, and often teeter on the edge if specialist staff are sick?
The wider issue here is a profound lack of recruitment and retention, and, critically, succession planning. Staff also deserve working conditions that do not see them lurch from crisis to crisis on a daily basis. The entire situation points to a need for positive working cultures and for meaningful investment in infrastructure. Somerset and North Dorset deserve better – at the very least, some strategic planning so that people can access the very best healthcare when they are at their most vulnerable.
Information about the maternity services in Yeovil can be found on the Trust website here.
