The Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead

• THANK you to everyone who signed my petition to save the Royal Free maternity and neonatal unit and took the time to make a submission to the consultation on its proposed closure.

Our petition received over 500 signatures and it was heartwarming to see such a strong response from the local community and staff at the Royal Free to the worrying plan to close our local maternity unit.

The Royal Free’s unit is uniquely placed to offer expert, specialised care to pregnant women and mothers in our local area, and without access to the many services that the Royal Free is alone in providing in North Central London, I worry that countless women will not be able to access the care and treatment they need.

I raised these concerns and my fears about the risk of increasing health inequalities in my submission to the consultation which is being run by local health chiefs.

In my submission I pointed out that not enough consideration was awarded to maternal care in the rationale behind suggesting the closure of the Royal Free maternity unit.

Healthy babies are born from healthy mothers, after all, and the Royal Free is uniquely equipped to provide expert, specialist care to pregnant women and mothers which cannot be replicated at any other hospital in the local area.

Several other specialist teams and services at the Royal Free play an integral role in working alongside the maternity and neonatal unit to provide holistic and cross-disciplinary care to the pregnant women and mothers who visit the hospital.

With the complexities of births and pregnancies increasing across the nation, these specialist services – many of which are not available at any other hospital in the area – are more important now than ever.

These services include dialysis services, 24-hour interventional radiology services, specialist renal and liver transplant services, a specialist HIV antenatal clinic, and an onsite cardiac intensive care unit.

Access to these unique specialist services truly makes the difference between life and death for many women, but this has not been reflected or even acknowledged in the consultation documents.

In 2023 there were 25 pregnant women in North Central London who could only have received the care and treatment they needed at the Royal Free Hospital.

While these women may not be large in number, they are representative of the invaluable expert and personalised care that is only accessible at the Royal Free.

I raised my fear that this reduction in services will hit pregnant women and mothers from the most marginalised backgrounds the worst.

In inhibiting access to life-saving services, the closure of the Royal Free’s maternity and neonatal unit will increase health inequalities with a disproportionate effect on women from low-income and ethnic minority backgrounds. It risks jeopardising maternal safety and increasing maternal mortality rates.

I have been doing everything I can to raise these concerns, including in parliament, and I will continue to fight alongside the local community to save our maternity unit.

TULIP SIDDIQ MP
Labour, Hampstead & Kilburn