Trust leaders raise alarm over ‘mad’ approach to scrutiny of maternity services

The management of fragile maternity services is being hamstrung by a lack of clear standards and direction from government and regulators, trust chairs and chief executives have told HSJ.

Kathy Thomson, the retiring chief executive of Liverpool Women’s Foundation Trust, told HSJ that a major overhaul of regulation and oversight of maternity care was needed.

She warned that trust leaders were confused about what was expected of their stewardship of maternity services. Much of the increased scrutiny of the sector was coming from people with little knowledge and experience of maternity care, and maternity was beset by too many initiatives which “somebody thinks are a nice thing to do”.

Ms Thomson’s comments were echoed by a wide range of other NHS leaders (see ’damaging confidence’ below). 

Ms Thomson told HSJ: “How clear are we nationally about the real ask of maternity services? Are we going to say it’s the ten NHS Resolution (NHSR) safety standards, which are really tough to achieve and which we agonise over? Or is it the CQC standards, because they will often take a different view around very similar issues?

“We’ve had that this year after we’ve been assessed as compliant by NHSR, but then had to re-provide evidence after we’ve been criticised by the CQC for something… and then NHSR have written back to say we’re still fully compliant.

“So, should you put your time and energy into the NHSR standards, or do you spend the time on the more subjective drivers? Because we can’t keep doing all of it and having different parts of the NHS saying this is what you need to do or expecting something different.”

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Source: HSJ, 30 November 2023