The Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland Joint Health Scrutiny Committee met on Monday 23 February 2026 to discuss the ongoing situation at St Mary's Birth Centre, the work of the LLR SEND & Inclusion Alliance, and winter pressures within local health services. Key decisions included noting the progress of engagement regarding St Mary's Birth Centre and agreeing to a future meeting to discuss winter pressures in more detail.

St Mary's Birth Centre Update

The committee received an update on the decision to pause births and postnatal inpatient services at St Mary's Birth Centre (SMBC) in July 2025. Maria Laffan, Chief Nursing Officer for Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland and Northamptonshire Integrated Care Boards, presented a report detailing the ongoing engagement process with affected patients, families, and staff. The intended direction, supported by legal advice and consistent with the 2021 public consultation, is to relocate births to the existing midwifery-led unit at Leicester General Hospital while maintaining community maternity services in Melton Mowbray. The engagement process, which ran until 15 February 2026, aimed to gather experiences to inform next steps, with a full report to be considered by the LLR ICB Board on 19 March 2026.

Concerns were raised by attendees regarding the closure, with one individual stating, I just don't feel that this, this whole debate has put this sufficiently taken into account public sentiment in and around the Milton, Moby area. ¹ Questions were also posed about the funding for pilot projects and the return on investment, with one attendee noting, 5.7 million for just helping 1,000 people doesn't seem an awful lot of return on the investment to me. ²

The report highlighted that the pause was due to long-standing challenges, including safe staffing shortages (around 30% of the community team were unavailable) and declining birth numbers (92 births in the year prior to the pause). The report also noted that fewer women are eligible for standalone midwifery units like St Mary's due to presenting with more complex needs. The engagement approach was widened to include users of SMBC for births and postnatal care from 2021-2025, and the deadline was extended. Early emerging themes from the engagement centred on access, practicalities, experiences of care and support, the importance of clear communication, and workforce perspectives.

LLR SEND & Inclusion Alliance Update

The committee received an update on the work of the Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland (LLR) SEND & Inclusion Alliance (SIA). Fay Bayliss and Mark Roberts, Directors of the LLR SEND & Inclusion Alliance, presented information on the SIA's approach to co-production, the SEND Change Programme Partnership (CPP), the SEND Aligned Commissioning Programme, the Shaping SEND Futures local community inclusion model, and the Operational Plan for 2026/27.

The SIA is a collaborative arrangement across LLR, formed to sustain the programmatic approach used in the national CPP, which tested and refined proposed policy reforms for children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). The Alliance aims to ensure children and young people with SEND have their needs met in mainstream education, feel a sense of belonging in their communities, and receive integrated support through aligned commissioning across health, care, and education.

Key initiatives discussed included the Local Integrated Service Offer (LISO) to support children in mainstream education, with projects like PINS (Partnership for Inclusion of Neurodiversity in Schools) and ELSEC (Early Language Support for Every Child) showing positive results. The Shaping SEND Futures programme focuses on holistic community-based inclusion, with a case study on social prescribing in Hinckley and Bosworth demonstrating success in diverting consultations from GP practices and improving wellbeing. The SIA is also identifying priorities for aligned commissioning, including social and emotional mental health, coordination of information, advice, and support, and preparation for adulthood post-16. The Alliance is currently resourced until July 2027, with proposals for ongoing funding being drafted.

Winter Pressures and System Health Equity

A verbal update was provided on current winter pressures, highlighting an early surge in flu cases and ongoing challenges with Accident and Emergency (A&E) waiting times, including waits of over 12 hours for patients needing mental health beds. The committee was informed of work to improve ambulance response times, quicker handovers, and A&E performance, with a focus on increasing the number of patients seen within four hours and improving care for children. A paediatric hub has opened, and a first respiratory surge has been experienced.

Discussions also touched upon system health equity, with data analysed to assess the impact of protected characteristics on ambulance waiting times. The findings indicated that clinical need and acuity of illness were the primary drivers, rather than protected characteristics. However, further work examined patient experiences, revealing that while adult attendance outnumbered paediatric attendance, there was a noted increase in children's attendance. The data showed that older patients of white ethnicity tended to wait longer due to the complexity of their needs, while Black and Asian individuals and deprived groups were overrepresented in the Emergency Department but had lower average patient acuity.

Members raised concerns about the scarcity of digital inclusion hubs in rural areas and the ad-hoc nature of GP digitisation. The functionality and user interface of the NHS app were also discussed, with suggestions for improvement. Data security was addressed, with assurances of robust cyber security systems and business continuity plans in place.

The committee agreed to note the verbal updates and that a special meeting would take place with all health partners for the City in January, with a further update to follow at the next Joint Health Meeting in February.