Inspectors warn abortion service

An abortion provider is being accused of putting women at risk through poor staff training, and failing to get proper consent.

A Care Quality Commission (CQC) report details failings at Marie Stopes International, following inspections at several clinics, including Brewer Street, Maidstone.

In August, the firm temporarily stopped providing terminations under general anaesthetic, and to under 18s and vulnerable women, but services were resumed in October, after the health regulator said standards had improved.

In Maidstone, the clinic came under fire after safety checklists were found to be “inconsistent and incomplete”, with staff said to have a limited understanding of the documents and policies.

Failings were also found in infection control systems, with poor hand hygiene.

And while Maidstone was found to have the highest takeup of life support training, just 16% of staff had recent training on the safeguarding of children.

CQC issued four warning notices to Marie Stopes International in response to regulatory breaches around consent, safeguarding, care and treatment and governance, as well as a number of requirement notices, to support improvement.

Suzanne Ash, interim managing director at Marie Stopes UK, said considerable changes had been made after the lessons learned from the inspections.