Maternity Services

A purpose-built and individually designed Birth Centre at Chesterfield Royal Hospital that opened in January 2010 provides 8 Consultant-led care rooms, including 1 with birth pool, and a further 4 midwifery-led care rooms, including 3 with birth pools.

For most women and birthing people the community midwife is responsible for antenatal bookings, reducing the need for attendance at hospital. A patient held maternity record is in use throughout the service. A full range of antenatal tests, including anomaly screening, is available and ultrasound scanning is carried out on all patients who request screening at 12 and 20 weeks gestation. Ultrasound is accessible to all GP's and community midwives by direct referral, and includes a limited service at weekends.

Upon having a home birth or leaving hospital, new parents are supported in their own homes by the community midwifery service.

Full paediatric support services are available, including intensive care for pre-term babies (see neonatal unit information). Breastfeeding is promoted throughout the maternity service and is supported by a full-time infant feeding adviser. The Trust is committed to supporting mothers and birthing people to breastfeed and has UNICEF Baby Friendly accreditation.

At Chesterfield Royal Hospital, we continually appraise the exceptional maternity care we provide and review women’s and family experiences regularly. We are actively undertaking a dedicated maternity transformation programme to ensure that we continue to learn and continue to improve.

The first “Ockenden” report published in December 2020, highlighted the importance of making families’ voices central to how we provide maternity services. Our latest CQC maternity patient survey was above average which is a testament to the care and compassion of all our staff in maternity services.

See the Okenden Report page for more information.