The Neighbourhood Midwives team in 2018 (Archive) A report into the “shocking” financial collapse of a Waltham Forest midwife service last year goes some way towards solving the “mystery” of its closure. On January 24 last year, 121 pregnant residents being cared for by Neighbourhood Midwives, set up in 2016, were told it would shut the following week. At the time Walthamstow MP Stella Creasy told the Observer the service’s closure was “a mystery” and that a lot of residents “sing its praises and want it to continue”. The service was paid for by the Waltham Forest clinical commissioning group (CCG), which decides how NHS money is spent, as part of a two-year pilot scheme to improve maternity care.