News

We are limiting routine self-referrals to our maternity units at St Mary’s Hospital and Queen Charlotte’s and Chelsea Hospital temporarily from today, Tuesday 18 February 2025. Only individuals living in NHS North West London (incorporating the boroughs: Brent, Ealing, Hammersmith and Fulham, Harrow, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster) or NHS North Central London (incorporating the boroughs: Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Haringey and Islington) will be able to refer themselves directly. 

In addition, we will no longer accept any late (30 weeks or more) self-referrals for care to be transferred from other maternity units, including from individuals living in NHS North West London or North Central London (unless you have recently moved into the area).

We will continue to accept referrals from GPs and maternity units for individuals where there is a clinical need for complex pregnancy care, including maternal medicine and fetal medicine.

The changes are necessary to ensure safe and high quality care and to maintain sufficient capacity for complex pregnancies and births in light of significant and unanticipated increases in demand, especially from outside our sector and our neighbouring sector. This is in the context of falling birth rates across London. We are also concerned that the current situation is likely to be exacerbating health inequalities. 

We are exploring a range of options for a longer-term, more strategic response and need to have the temporary limits to self-referral in place to manage safely in the interim.

Susan Barry, Director of midwifery at the Trust, said: “We’re really proud of our maternity units, both rated as outstanding by the CQC, and want as many women as possible to be able to choose to have their babies with us. Restricting self-referrals to our local populations has been a very difficult decision to make but it has become essential due to unprecedented demand over the past year or so”.

“By the end of 2024/25, we expect to have delivered over 700 more babies than planned, and nearly 400 more than actually delivered in 2023/24, with an increasing number of mothers travelling from far afield for our care. We simply do not have the space or staffing to continue to manage increased demand at this level without significantly impacting quality, our ability to provide much needed care for women with complex pregnancies or births and the wellbeing of our staff. We are working closely with our NHS partners to make sure everyone impacted is supported to find other options that meet their needs.”