Staff ‘let down by leaders’ as ‘chaotic’ service gets double downgrade

A teaching trust has had its maternity services downgraded to ‘inadequate’ after inspectors found stillbirths and massive haemorrhages were not being treated as ‘serious incidents’.

Maternity services at St George’s University Hospitals Foundation Trust in south London were previously inspected in 2016, when they were assessed as “good”.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) said serious incident declaration meetings at St George’s were regularly classing serious incidents as “adverse incidents”, meaning executives were not informed and there were missed opportunities for learning and development.

Inspectors also found incidents such as severe perineal tears, emergency hysterectomy, and birth injuries were rated as causing low or no harm when a higher level would have been appropriate, or and sometimes downgraded from a higher rating.

Carolyn Jenkinson, CQC’s deputy director of secondary and specialist healthcare, said: “We saw areas where significant and urgent improvements are needed to ensure safe care is provided to women, people using this service, and their babies.

“Both staff and people using the service were being let down by leaders who failed to respond quickly, resulting in care that was unsafe, and in the delivery suite, also chaotic.”

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Source: HSJ, 17 August 2023