HEALTH leaders have spoken of their disappointment after the district was branded one of the worst in the country for maternity care - and promised that improving the service is their “top priority”.

The Bradford Districts Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) was one of 11out of 209 CCGs rated as needing the “greatest need for improvement” in an NHS England report.

Bradford City and Airedale CCGs fared slightly better as two of 144 groups which “need improvement”.

Four areas of maternity care were assessed - stillbirth and neonatal mortality rates, maternal smoking rate at delivery, experience and choice.

While the figures have been hailed a “positive step” for transparency by the Royal College of Midwives, locally the news has been labelled disappointing.

In 2014, the Better Start Bradford project was set-up with a £49 million lottery grant to transform the lives of babies in the Bowling and Barkerend, Bradford Moor and Little Horton areas, where infant mortality is particularly high.

Its programme director, Michaela Howell, said: “It’s disappointing to see these figures, which show how much more we need to do to provide great support to families to help them get children off to the best start in life - in Bradford and across the country.

“Our personalised midwifery care pilot , delivered by Opal Team as part of the Better Start Bradford programme, is starting to make headway in ensuring women in our area get the highest quality, personal and continuous midwifery care”

A spokesman for the district’s three CCGs said improving maternity care was a “top priority”.

“We are working with local and national partners to develop services which improve outcomes and experiences of maternity care for our community. This includes partnerships which specifically look at how we can improve infant mortality rates and reduce the numbers of women smoking during pregnancy,” she said, adding that recommendations set out in a national Better Births report were also being put in place.

Councillor Val Slater, the Council’s portfolio holder for health and wellbeing, added: “In Bradford the number of babies dying before their first birthday is at its lowest level in ten years and we have seen a great improvement in some of the poorest areas in our district. However, this is still higher than what is seen nationally and it is very upsetting for all concerned.”

“The transfer of Health Visiting into the local authority will give us the chance to work with our partners across Bradford to look at what Health Visitors can do to improve the health of Bradford’s children.

“Projects such as Better Start Bradford, a ten year programme to improve outcomes for young children in some of our poorest areas, will also help us understand what works and help shape local services to better meet needs.”

The director of the Born in Bradford project, a study of 13,500 babies born at Bradford Royal Infirmary, was unable to comment.