Hospital must improve care of newborn babies
A HOSPITAL has been instructed that it must make immediate improvements to its neonatal service in order to keep babies safe.
A panel set up to oversee improvements in maternity and neonatal care at Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board discovered a range of findings that require action at the neonatal services at the Prince Charles Hospital in Merthyr Tydfil.
It is part of a wider investigation into the maternity and neonatal services across the health board, after a previous report found dozens of women received substandard care at the Royal Glamorgan and Prince Charles Hospitals.
Health Minister Eluned Morgan said that the Independent Maternity Services Oversight Panel (IMSOP) had increased its focus on neonatal care.
She said that as a result, it had been discovered that some areas were “impacting on the consistent provision of safe and effective care that would be expected of such a unit in the UK” and several steps to improve the care have begun or been recommended. These include:
Immediate improvements to medicines prescribing and administration with pharmacy support and daily checking of prescriptions;
■ an audit to ensure the timely transfer of babies needing referral to a tertiary unit (such as the University Hospital of Wales) and reducing inappropriate admissions to the Prince Charles Hospital unit;
■ increasing the intensity of consultants overseeing the unit and increased time allocated to the unit;
■ closer working with and support from the specialist neonatal unit in Cardiff. The recruitment of an additional two consultant posts is already under way, with one taking up post in November; ■ establishing a specialist centre support programme for neonatal nursing staff;
■ improving specific aspects of clinical practice, including urgent review of the approach to therapeutic cooling of babies and for those requiring intubation; and
■ improvements to the standard of documentation, including the introduction of a revised observation chart.
The findings were based on a range of evidence which included feedback from families who used the facilities, conversations with staff and wider stakeholders as well as a review of documentation relating to clinical outcomes, safety and effectiveness data as well as clinical governance and assurance.
This particular part of the investigation also looked at case reviews of the sickest infants that presented to the neonatal unit during 2020 during the Covid pandemic.
Baroness Morgan said: “I am mindful of the pressures currently facing staff and neonatal services are no exception – these findings will be difficult and upsetting.
“However, the openness of the unit’s staff and their ideas about what needs to change have been welcomed by the panel.
“It is important staff are supported to make these improvements and their wellbeing is a key consideration in the health board’s improvement plan.
“Equally, while these findings will be concerning for families using the service, I hope they will see that their voices and involvement really do matter and can effect change.
“Many of the improvements in train have been informed by their feedback and I am assured that the health board want to work with families to ensure that communication and support is improved and that parents have greater involvement in decisions about their baby’s care.”
So far, maternity errors discovered at the health board have cost its services massive seven figure sums in compensation.
Baroness Morgan also said that the panel is currently finalising its analysis on findings that involved babies who were stillborn, and the report will be available soon.
Sallie Davies, deputy medical director at Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health board, said: “We welcome the level of scrutiny provided by this review, and with the support of IMSOP and Welsh Government alongside us, we continue to work on ongoing improvements in our maternity and neonatal services.”