MATERNITY services in north Essex have received a major boost after being awarded more than £370,000.

The money has been given to Colchester Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust and will be used to appoint additional members of staff – including three senior midwives and a consultant obstetrician.

Additional equipment, including a £60,000 ultrasound scanning machine, will also be bought.

The trust has been awarded £371,758 after making a successful application to the NHS Litigation Authority.

It was one of 67 successful bids out of a total of 243 which were submitted nationally.

Jo Osborne, consultant obstetrician at the trust, said: “We are excited about being able to recruit another specialist obstetrician to our team.

“The new scanning machine and the specialist scanning midwives will help us to detect small babies who are more likely to get into difficulty during labour and birth.

“The new software will help to improve the monitoring and detection of abnormalities in the pattern of babies’ heart rates in labour, improving the chance of healthy babies. We are committed to improving the experience for all families using our maternity services.”

The money was held in the Sign up to Safety fund, which takes its name from a national patient safety campaign launched last year by Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, to which the trust has signed up.

Dymphna Sexton-Bradshaw, who is the head of midwifery, said her priority now is to use the money to recruit staff, order the equipment and implement the programme to improve safety for mothers.

She added the trust had made improvements in recent years, including increasing consultant presence on the delivery suite at Colchester General Hospital from 60 hours to 78 hours a week and establishing a second obstetric operating theatre.

The trust has also established a maternity triage unit where women can be assessed when they have medical problems in pregnancy and when they are in early labour.

The trust runs the maternity unit at Colchester General Hospital as well as providing maternity services in the community and at the community hospitals in Clacton, Halstead and Harwich.