Baby deaths linked to lack of basic midwife training
BABIES are dying and being put at risk of brain injury because it is “commonplace” for British midwives to qualify without being trained to use basic equipment, a senior coroner has warned.
The regulator for midwives has been told to reform the syllabus for trainees after a series of newborn deaths following monitoring failures.
Hospital trusts have been advised to only recruit qualified midwives if they can prove they can perform foetal heart monitoring.
Every university has been asked to include appropriate training in midwifery degrees – instead of relying on e-learning courses after qualification.
The action follows a steep rise in compensation claims against the NHS for catastrophic blunders in childbirth.
The number of claims as a result of brain damage and cerebral palsy has tripled in a decade.
The recommendations emerged following an inquest into the death of Billy Willson, who died at three days old in November 2013, after being starved of oxygen at birth.
Even though the pregnancy was identified as high risk, midwives failed to spot an abnormality and administered drugs which caused the baby to suffer stress and oxygen deprivation.
A newly qualified midwife on her first night shift at Pinderfields Hospital,
Delilah Hubbard died two days after her birth at Leicester Royal Infirmary in 2015. Although her mother, Clara Bassford, was classed as a “high risk” pregnancy, midwives failed to monitor her properly. After Ms Bassford warned her baby was not moving, midwives positioned a monitor wrongly so the child’s heart rate was not properly recorded.
Rupert Sanders died in 2012 after midwife Carol Marston switched off a heart monitor alarm 16 times during his birth at Stafford Hospital. She admitted “catastrophic” errors. Fellow midwife Anne Mather also failed to detect the gravity of the situation during his mother’s labour, the Nursing and Midwifery Council heard.
Maternity care at Shrewsbury and Telford NHS trust is under examination over the deaths of 15 babies and three women, with at least five cases of foetal heart check failures. West Yorks, failed to recognise “pathological” signs on the monitor, and continued to increase the dose.
In evidence to the inquest, the midwife said she had not been properly taught how to interpret the monitor during her Midwifery Course at Bradford University and had not finished an e-learning programme on the subject.
An expert witness told the inquest it was “commonplace” for midwives to qualify without the essential training.
West Yorkshire coroner David Hinchcliff has now asked the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) to take urgent steps to prevent future deaths. In a second report he warned that “many” inquests revealed midwives and doctors lack “core skills” to inter- pret monitors. The regulator – which has been criticised for slow action over maternity scandals – was told to draw up a plan of action by last week.
Last night the NMC said it had responded to the coroner, and begun “a wholesale review” of the standards newly qualified midwives must meet, including addressing training in interpreting foetal heart monitoring.
The same coroner has also written to the heads of the Royal College of Midwives and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists calling for action. Official figures show the value of claims against NHS maternity units for brain damage and cerebral palsy has risen from £354million in 2004/5 to £990million.