‘Sorry’ for poor maternity service
TRUST BOSSES APOLOGISE FOR ‘INADEQUATE ‘ SAFETY
THE hospital trust which runs maternity services in Nottingham has apologised after a “devastating” report.
The highly critical Care Quality Commission report last month downgraded the service from “requires improvement” to “inadequate”.
It found the “service did not have enough maternity staff with the right qualifications, skills, training and experience to keep patients safe from avoidable harm and to provide the right care and treatment”.
At a health scrutiny panel on Thursday, health bosses apologised unreservedly.
They said they had been aware of problems for three or four years, and that their aim was to be rated as “good” by this time next year.
Part of the problem was that they had historically calculated how many staff would be needed by using a “per birth” figure, but this didn’t take into account the fact that more births were becoming more complex, and so taking up more staffing time.
Before the CQC inspection, in October, the trust recalculated staffing levels and found itself 73 midwives short.
Medical director Keith Girling said: “I want to start by acknowledging that the CCQ report that we had from the visit in October last year was very distressing for all of us to read, and as a trust we are very sorry for the care we have delivered to women in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire in our maternity unit, where the care was below that which you would aspire to give.
“We were very chastened to read of the inadequate standard of care provision.
“The report has been taken extremely seriously by the organisation. We are very sorry to the ladies who have experienced that care, and we are also very sorry to the staff who have been under extreme pressure, and we are also mindful that this will have caused significant anxiety to those women who are due to be using our services in this next period of time.
“We are working very hard to put into place immediate measures to provide assurance to women that their care remains safe.
“We have taken immediate actions to ensure day-to-day safety.
“We have an ambition that within 12 months we will be able to report that the maternity service has moved from inadequate to good. That is what we have set ourselves as a challenge and an expectation.”
Sarah Moppett, interim chief nurse at the trust, said while the report had been “devastating”, progress had already been made, and there were now twice-daily “safe today” checks, designed to ensure short-term safety for patients.