New facility provides boost for community midwifery service

A community midwifery service is benefitting from new facilities which recently opened in Oxford.

The Florence Park Midwives now have three extra clinic rooms and an additional office at the Rectory Centre, where there is also waiting space.

The centre also hosts daily maternity support worker clinics that offer infant feeding help and jaundice checks as well as a weight and blood spot test for new-born babies.

Since Monday, July 1, the Florence Park Midwives have been carrying out initial home visits, with all future appointments in the postnatal clinic at Rectory Road.

Wendy Hill, matron for community services at Oxford University Hospitals, said: "This is a really important space for our service users in the Cowley area.

"It will allow us to provide more appointments and more space for quality clinical care, as well as more space for the team to work from."

Lead community midwife at Florence Park, Amanda Crudgington, added: "Our caseload covers antenatal and postnatal care of more than 1,000 women in a year across both sites of Florence Park.

"The new clinical space is a huge support to us in providing additional space and extra facilities."

Chief nursing officer at Oxford University Hospitals, Yvonne Christley, said: "This new facility offers a bigger and welcoming space to our patients and allows the midwives to continue providing their usual standard of compassionate care to mothers and families."