Apology over delay to maternity report publication

The healthcare watchdog has apologised over delays to the publication of its report into maternity services in Nottingham, which is subject of the largest inquiry of its kind in the NHS.

Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspections - in June and July - found seven breaches of regulation in safe care and treatment at Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH) NHS Trust's two main hospitals.

Overall, maternity services have been rated as requires improvement for being safe and well-led.

Following criticism from Donna Ockenden, who is leading the review into maternity deaths and injuries at the trust, the CQC has admitted the report was not published "as soon after the inspection as it should have done".

Following publication of its report, the CQC apologised for the delays, which senior midwife Ms Ockenden labelled "unacceptable" last month.

"Due to a large-scale transformation programme at CQC, this report [was] not published as soon after the inspection as it should have done," a CQC spokesperson said.

"The programme involved changes to the technology CQC uses but resulted in problems with the systems and processes rather than the intended benefits. The amount of time taken to publish this report falls far short of what people using services and the trust should be able to expect and the CQC apologises for this."

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Source: BBC News, 26 March 2025