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We know how important local maternity services are to the residents of northern Devon and north east Cornwall, the wider community, and our colleagues, and we are listening to the concerns being raised about the temporary suspension.

 

This briefing provides you with up-to-date information that addresses these concerns and helps you signpost the people you meet to accurate information. Please use this information when people are asking you questions or raising concerns with you.

 

At a glance:

• Temporary suspension of birthing services at NDDH is now in place. Community midwifery, antenatal care, scans and outpatient services continue in North Devon.
• Nine women and birthing people gave birth at RD&E up to 12 August, no incidents.
• Prepaid cards will soon be in place to support vulnerable families with travel and accommodation.
• Comprehensive information pack launched to support women and birthing people. FAQs are also updated daily on our web pages.
• We are encouraging all women/birthing people to call us on our dedicated maternity triage line as soon as they think they are in labour or have any concerns – 01392 406616. This number is 24/7.
• Our focus is on our dedicated reopening programme to enable a safe return of births to North Devon.
• Refreshed recruitment campaign has had more than 90k social media likes, and we are engaging with several potential consultant candidates.

 

Operational update

The temporary suspension of birthing services at NDDH was enacted on 11 August due to insufficient medical staffing.

 

Community midwifery, antenatal care, scans and outpatient services are continuing in North Devon.

 

So far nine North Devon women/birthing people have had their baby at RD&E, two by elective C-section. There have been no issues escalated since the temporary suspension began.

 

How our staff and services have prepared

• Every day buses take staff to and from North Devon to support RD&E and the additional patients. The feedback from North Devon women is they are really pleased to see familiar midwife faces. This staff travel is within working hours.

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• Our teams have worked rapidly to induct the North Devon staff, create the space at RD&E, and adopt the new clinical pathways agreed with South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust to get ready for 11 August.

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• Our NDDH Emergency Department staff have had some additional obstetric training to deal with pregnant people in a health emergency or who didn't realise the unit was shut. However we want to avoid any perception that ED is a place for giving birth unless there is a life-threatening situation. Women and birthing people should contact our 24/7 triage telephone lines – 01392 406616 - if they have any concerns about their pregnancy or think they may be in labour. Our Exeter team will be calling people from Northern Devon into hospital earlier and we have expanded space in RD&E to accommodate them.

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• We have repurposed Holybrook Ward at RD&E to manage the expected increase in demand at RD&E. This space is for those in early labour and designed for longer stays, acknowledging the increased distance people are travelling.

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• We have done significant communications and engagement to support wide patient, public and stakeholder awareness. We are communicating directly with women and birthing people; responding to all media; publishing daily updated information and maintaining open channels with stakeholders.

 

Supporting women and birthing people 

 

Vulnerable people – travel and language barriers

We recognise that more people will require support as a result of this suspension. They will be made 'vulnerable' due to distance from Exeter.

 

We have now contacted everyone in our priority group of pregnant women and birthing people to discuss their options and support.

 

• This support includes signposting and advice regarding transport, accommodation and finances.
• Face-to-face appointments are also being offered in North Devon for those who need further support.

 

Travel and accommodation support

• We have a process in place so that staff can support women with taxi fares if they need to go to RD&E for maternity triage assessment and they don't have access to finances or transport. This is being funded by NHS Devon ICB as an interim measure until the pre-paid cards are in place.
• From Monday 17 August we will have access to pre-paid cards to provide additional financial support for those who will experience significant barriers relating to accommodation and travel to Exeter or another hospital and where no other options are available.
• These people are being identified and supported by their midwife and the local team will co-ordinate the access to this additional financial support.

 

Language support

• We have reached out to the Pickwell Foundation, Hikmat and Sunrise Diversity to ensure we are meeting the needs of those for whom English is not their first language.
• These organisations have extensive networks and have already attended our drop ins to ensure they are able to share accurate information in the community. We will continue to respond to their requests.
• In July 2026 we introduced translation access cards for our global majority families. These cards support communication during maternity triage assessment and allow them to highlight their concerns rapidly even if translation services were delayed or unavailable. We are asking our networks to help distribute these.

 

Communications to every woman/birthing person

We are keeping all currently pregnant women up to date via MY CARE (99% have MY CARE) – or by other means.

 

We have two key messages:

• speak to their midwife at their next appointment. These are at regular intervals from 8-10 weeks. Or they can call our helpline for non-urgent enquiries.
• call our 24/7 urgent maternity triage line as soon as they think they might be in labour or have any other concerns. This enables us to get women to Exeter at the earliest opportunity.

 

We have launched a patient information pack  and this is available on our website. We're promoting this widely. It is translated and in easy read.

 

Our dedicated Trust web page is updated regularly and has the very latest information and FAQs.

 

Drop-in sessions were held across Northern Devon last week to help answer questions and concerns, and gather immediate views on the support we need to put in place.

 

We have launched a social media campaign with answers to the key questions we're hearing and key patient information.

 

We are working with NHS Devon ICB on ensuring we reach holidaymakers. GPs and pharmacies have been provided with a poster signposting to information.

 

How did we get to the point of suspending the birthing service?

A question we are being asked by our stakeholders is how the service reached this critical point and what we did to avoid the temporary suspension of the service.

 

We have been aware of staffing challenges for a number of years and have been tracking the fragility of our medical staffing in maternity. In light of our ongoing recruitment challenges we recognised the risk to the service and we developed a business continuity plan in 2025 to indicate the thresholds of safe staffing.

 

During this time we continued to work to address our workforce gap through our recruitment efforts, for both permanent and temporary staff. Our current workforce across both North and East worked additional hours over and above their contracted hours to support the service in North Devon.

 

In July, in addition to the vacancies, there was a very short notice decision by a long-term locum to withdraw from NDDH and additional consultant absence due to personal factors. The decision the Royal Devon Board came to was that the safety thresholds had been breached; even with existing staff doing additional hours, we couldn't guarantee sufficient medical staffing to run a 24/7 birthing service.

 

Recovery, reopening and recruitment

A dedicated reopening programme is already in place, focused on recruitment, workforce planning and service resilience to enable a safe return of births to North Devon.

 

Recruitment

We are currently running a recruitment campaign to attract obstetrics and gynaecology consultants to North Devon, using:

• national advertising
• social media
• executive search
• professional networks
• consultant referrals

 

This campaign has already had more than

• 90,000 social media views
• 10,000 clicks
• 1,600 engagement actions

 

There are a number of factors that make recruitment more complex in North Devon.

• There is a national shortage of suitably qualified obstetric consultants.
• In line with other smaller units, we require our consultants at NDDH to specialise in both obstetrics and gynaecology. There are not enough births in North Devon to operate separate rotas and maintain clinical skills.
• RD&E has separate obstetric and gynaecology rotas as that site has a higher number of births. This does make cross-cover challenging, but those RD&E consultants that can provide support to the rota in North Devon have done so where they can.

 

Progress

We are really pleased with the response to the consultant adverts and headhunting so far – we are in dialogue with four potential candidates.

 

We are in contact with two locum consultants and are developing a rapid onboarding induction process.

 

We also have two tier 2 (registrar) candidates who require visas and our local MP is supporting the fast-tracking of their visa application.

 

Reopening criteria

To safely reopen we will need to ensure that we have a resilient and sustainable workforce in place and we anticipate it will be through a combination of temporary and permanent staff.

 

We have an eight-person consultant rota and an eight-person tier 2 rota that ensures a 24/7 medical rota. These rotas are separate but connected.

 

There are three aspects to the reopening criteria

• The consultant rota has to be filled
• We have to be assured that the consultant and tier 2 vacancies are filled in a way that avoids another short-notice closure
• We have to be sure that across the clinical team we have got the skills and competencies we need

 

How you can help

Share our patient information pack for women, birthing people and families

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Signpost people to our website for the latest updates and FAQs

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Share our job advert

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Use the information we have shared with you to respond to questions from your community.

 

Please help our posts reach more people by sharing them, particularly on Facebook.

 

Thank you for your continued support. We will update you again soon.