About 1,700 pregnant women, some due to give birth within weeks, will need to find new midwives after a maternity care service was forced to close because of financial difficulties.
One to One Midwives announced it was withdrawing the services it provided for the NHS and will enter insolvency proceedings.
The company, which provides midwifery services to women in Essex and the north-west of England, said the contracts did not pay enough to make the service financially sustainable.
The patients were told on Monday they would need to find an alternative NHS service. Women who were drawn to the service because of its specialism in home births may now have to give birth in hospitals.
Elle Torry, 39, a music tutor and advanced hypnotherapist, said she was shocked to hear the service was closing and the midwives would be losing their jobs. Torry said she has been left with uncertainty with just four weeks to go to her due date. “It puts me in a difficult position because we planned to have a home birth and now I have to decide whether to go to the hospital.”
She said the service was like the TV programme Call the Midwife, adding that she loved the bond she was able to build with her midwife. “You don’t get that level of care in a hospital. I think having this community-le d team is vital for women’s emotional wellbeing, to just be able to pick up the phone and ask ‘is this ok?’”
As well as the midwives losing their jobs, Torry said she was concerned for first time mothers and any woman who had experienced a traumatic birth.
Karen Hagan, 49, who has worked as a midwife for One to One for two and a half years, said: “It’s not what you get into midwifery to do, phone women and tell them you can’t support them any more.”
Hagan said she received an email about the closure of the service on Monday and the news quickly spread on social media. She said her clients have largely responded in shock.
The collapse of One to One follows the closure of Neighbourhood Midwives, which provided midwifery services to women in the south-east, in January.
A midwifery lead at One to One, who wished to remain anonymous, said the company struggled to keep up with certain charges they had to pay to the NHS, including fees to refer an expectant mother for certain hospital appointments. “Despite trying to make changes to the way in which the provider-to-provider payments work for our upcoming contract, there has been no willingness to assist us – which has led to our demise,” she said.
Alex Lee, 34, who used the One to One when giving birth to her son 15 months ago, said she was devastated to learn the service was closing. “It’s just such a tragedy for so many women to not be able to have this. It’s freedom of choice, quality of care that has been taken away from us.”
A spokeswoman for One to One said it was proud of the service it has provided over the last nine years, but the “challenging NHS landscape” had left it with little choice but to close.
A spokesperson for the NHS Wirral Clinical Commissioning Group said their “priority” was to ensure women affected by the closure could access the support they needed.
“Local commissioners have been working with One to One for some time and have been having an on-going dialogue to provide as much support as possible. One to One have been paid according to nationally agreed tariffs. The decision to go into administration has been taken by One to One,” the spokesperson added.
