Miscarriage Care and Facilities in Scotland: Scoping Report NHS Dumfries and Galloway

Findings

Miscarriage care services in Scotland

In Scotland women experiencing miscarriage present at many different locations. This includes: GP practices, Accident and Emergency (A&E) departments, Maternity Units, Community Maternity Units^[5], Early Pregnancy Units, and midwifery services more generally. Women call in advance or present in person for the first time at this range of settings.

Within the 14 Health Board areas in Scotland, numerous secondary care sites that could provide miscarriage care in Scotland were identified. These were checked by the lead professional for miscarriage care in each Health Board to ensure they were secondary care sites that may be the first point of contact for women experiencing miscarriage. This resulted in 44 sites being identified. The sites are listed in Annex A. Table 1 shows the number of sites identified for each Health Board.

Table 1: Number of sites where women experiencing miscarriage in Scotland may be seen

Health board - Number of sites

• NHS Ayrshire and Arran - 3
• NHS Borders - 1
• NHS Dumfries and Galloway - 2
• NHS Fife - 1
• NHS Forth Valley - 1
• NHS Grampian - 6
• NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde - 5
• NHS Highland - 12
• NHS Lanarkshire - 3
• NHS Lothian - 2
• NHS Orkney - 1
• NHS Shetland - 1
• NHS Tayside - 3
• NHS Western Isles - 3
• Total - 44

Table 2 below lists the secondary care services that the 44 sites, that took part in this
scoping exercise, said were available at each site within the 14 Health Board areas.

Services in NHS Dumfries and Galloway

In NHS Dumfries and Galloway two sites were identified that could come into contact with women experiencing miscarriage, these are:

• Galloway Community Hospital (A&E)
• Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary

In terms of miscarriage care, NHS Dumfries and Galloway operates almost all miscarriage care services from one primary location, Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary. Galloway Community Hospital acts as an A&E department with a community midwifery hub.

Where most women present for the first time when experiencing a miscarriage differs depending on the site. With regards to the main location that most women experiencing miscarriage should be seen, NHS Dumfries and Galloway identified a clinic which incorporates Early Pregnancy Services at Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary. NHS Dumfries and Galloway also reported that there is a Community Midwifery hub at the Oak Tree Family Centre which is co-located on the site of Galloway Community Hospital. The Community Midwifery Hub offers antenatal and postnatal appointments with the ability to provide scheduled ultrasound, however, there are scans Monday to Friday during business hours. The services provided at the two sites are detailed in Table 4 below.