340 labour ward blunders every day
Hundreds die after mistakes by doctors and midwives
AT least 340 blunders are occurring on nHS maternity wards every day, figures reveal.
Mothers and babies are routinely being harmed as a result of mistakes by midwives, doctors and other staff.
Although most errors are classed as ‘near misses’ or low injury, some have tragic consequences. last year, 151 women and newborns died on maternity wards and another 351 suffered severe harm.
Today, the nHS will publish a major review into the safety of maternity services which will urge staff to learn from their mistakes to ensure they don’t happen again.
it was commissioned in the wake of the scandal at the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay nHS trust where up to 30 mothers and babies died needlessly over a decade. led by Tory peer Baroness Cumberlege, the review is also expected to call for more
‘New mums are being let down badly’
women to be allowed to give birth at home or in smaller midwife-led centres. But critics will warn that it is a cost-cutting drive as both are far cheaper than hospital births.
Hospital maternity units are struggling to cope with immigration and the rising numbers of older and more obese women who have complicated labours.
figures from nHS England show that 124,143 safety incidents were reported by nHS hospital maternity units last year.
They included midwives not monitoring the foetus’s heartbeat, doctors wrongly administering epidurals, or emergency caesarean sections being carried out too late. The number has increased by 4 per cent on the previous year when 119,561 were reported.
labour health spokesman Justin Madders said: ‘ These disturbing figures show how badly new mums are being let down by this Tory government. five years ago David Cameron promised 3,000 more midwives, but he failed to deliver them.’
Cathy Warwick, chief executive of the Royal College of Midwives, said: ‘The sort of things that prevent these incidents are good communication, staff having time to do the job and midwives listening to women. We’ve got to improve on all of these.
‘We’re still short of midwives and junior doctors in maternity services and there’s no doubt that when there’s not enough staff, things are more likely to go wrong.’ Maureen Treadwell, of the Birth Trauma Association charity, said: ‘far too many women are being injured and too many babies are dying because necessary and wanted interventions are being delayed.’
More than a third of incidents related to ‘treatment or procedure’ such as pain-relieving epidural injections being inserted into the wrong place or errors with forceps.
Another 8,504 related to ‘infrastructure’, which included women and babies being harmed due to a lack of staff. A further 8,724 were due to documentation such as patients’ medical notes being mixed up or drugs charts misinterpreted.
But three-quarters of the cases were deemed to be ‘near misses’ and not to have caused any harm to the mother or baby. A further 26,023 caused ‘low’ injury while 351 were classed as severe and 151 led to death.
The figures only related to incidents which staff bothered to report – there may have been many others that were never logged. Separate data for last year showed that half of nHS mater- nity units had been forced to close their doors to women in labour because they were too busy.
An nHS England spokesman said: ‘The chances of a baby dying – the stillbirth or neonatal death rate – has fallen by a fifth over the past decade, and maternal mortality has fallen by 50 per cent, but it is vital we take every step to make further gains.’
A report into the Morecambe Bay scandal last year revealed how midwives obsessed with natural childbirth failed to involve doctors even when births went dangerously wrong.