Salford mayor demands 'urgent' action to reopen city's birth unit

Salford's mayor has called for "urgent" action to reopen a birth unit which has been closed for more than two years. Ingleside Birth and Community Centre is a refurbished former care home run by midwives from the Bolton NHS Foundation Trust.

It was opened in 2018 after maternity services at Salford Royal Hospital were scrapped - but due to a lack of 'safe staffing' births at Ingleside stopped in January 2022. But antenatal and postnatal services are still offered at the site.

Paul Dennett, who leads Salford council, said the situation is "deeply concerning" and called on healthcare bosses to resolve the issue without delay.

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He said: "Salford Labour Party are determined to make sure Salford mothers and families can have babies born in Salford again and will be working with partners to make sure this happens as soon as is practicable.

"Despite significant national government attention to maternity and neonatal services over recent times, it really is deeply concerning that we find ourselves in this current predicament.

"Salford City Council, working with our outstanding Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) at the time, sought to meaningfully engage with national policy recommendations when we refurbished Ingleside and established it as a freestanding midwife-led unit for mothers, families and newborn babies in Salford.

"To now find ourselves with a state-of-the-art facility that isn’t fully operational is truly tragic, especially given the current challenges facing maternity and neonatal services in Greater Manchester and beyond.

"Salford Labour Party therefore calls on Greater Manchester’s Integrated Care Board, NHS England and the Department of Health and