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Found 819 results
  1. News Article
    More Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspections will take place from next month as pressures from COVID-19 continue to ease. Board papers published ahead of a meeting on Wednesday have revealed the CQC will return to inspecting and rating NHS trusts and independent healthcare services which are rated “inadequate” or “requires improvement”, alongside those where new risks have come to light. From April, the CQC also plans to carry out well-led inspections of NHS and private mental healthcare providers, and programmes of focused inspections on the safety of maternity departments and providers’ infection prevention processes. Focused inspections into emergency departments, which the CQC began in February, will continue. Inspections into GP services rated “requires improvement” and “inadequate” will also resume in April, focusing on safety, effectiveness and leadership. Finally, the papers said the watchdog would prioritise inspections of “high-risk” independent healthcare services, such as ambulances, cosmetic surgery or where closed cultures may exist. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 24 March 2021
  2. News Article
    A trust being investigated over maternity care failings was urged six years ago to strengthen its neonatal staffing, HSJ can reveal. An external review into East Kent Hospitals University Foundation Trust — conducted in 2015 and kept under wraps until now — said it had insufficient staffing, and that medical consultants felt a lack of engagement with senior managers. The trust released the review yesterday after its existence became public for the first time earlier this month. Last year, the trust was heavily criticised at the inquest of baby Harry Richford, who died seven days after he was born at the Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, Hospital in Thanet. The Care Quality Commission is taking the trust to court over the case, and is the subject of an external inquiry. Among the recommendations of the review, carried out by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, were that consultants and junior doctors covering the neonatal intensive care unit “should have responsibilities solely to that specialty”. Such a move would improve the quality and safety of the service, the review suggests. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 22 March 2021
  3. News Article
    An inquiry into dozens of baby deaths at an NHS trust will examine failings from “ward to board” covering a period of more than a decade, it has emerged. The independent inquiry into poor maternity care at East Kent Hospitals University Trust published its terms of reference and scope for how it will carry out its work on Thursday. The probe, led by Dr Bill Kirkup, was commissioned by the government after The Independent revealed more than 130 infants suffered brain injuries during birth at the trust over several years. The scandal was exposed by the family of baby Harry Richford who died after a catalogue of errors by maternity staff in November 2017. A coroner ruled his death was the result of neglect and “wholly avoidable”. Several other families have also spoken out over the deaths of their babies, with evidence emerging the trust’s managers were warned about safety concerns but failed to take action. In October, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) said it intended to prosecute the trust over the death of Harry Richford. It is understood that since the inquiry was launched, a significant number of families have come forward with concerns but the inquiry has refused to say what the total number of cases is. Read full story Source: The Independent, 11 March 2021
  4. News Article
    Former staff at a Midlands acute trust have raised concerns over a ‘toxic management culture’ and ‘unsafe’ staffing levels within its maternity services, HSJ has learned. Two clinicians who recently worked within Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospital Trust’s maternity department have sent a letter to the Care Quality Commission outlining a series of concerns. The letter, seen by HSJ, claimed there was a “toxic management culture alongside poor leadership” within the trust’s senior midwifery team. It added: “This had led to 100 per cent turnover in staff within the middle management line… There is no confidence in the current leadership structure and no confidence that staff will be listened to and heard.” HSJ also understands there are also concerns around the service within the trust’s management. Although they do not raise direct patient safety concerns, the clinicians said the problems were “mostly long-standing” and had “deteriorated to the point where there is now a risk to patient safety”. They added: “We are raising these concerns now with the CQC as we feel we have not been listened to and changed effected in a timely manner.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 10 March 2021
  5. News Article
    A baby boy was starved of oxygen and died after being left half-delivered for almost a quarter of an hour during a “chaotic” breech birth in an NHS maternity unit. Midwives failed to recognise baby Theo Ellis was in the breech, or bottom first, position until his mother Laura Ellis, 34, was already in advanced labour at Surrey’s Frimley Park Hospital. What followed was a catalogue of errors by midwives and doctors who failed to heed the emergency situation and raised the alarm too late. At one stage a paediatrician was made to stand outside the room by midwives while junior staff struggled to deliver Theo alone. A senior obstetrician was in surgery and a miscommunication by midwives and an on-call consultant meant she did not arrive until Theo was already dead. After his parents brought legal action against the NHS, Frimley Park Hospital has now admitted mistakes led to Theo’s death in April 2019. Ms Ellis and husband James are angry their son was classed as being stillborn which meant a coroner was not allowed to investigate his care during an inquest. There have been repeated calls to change the law to ensure the deaths of babies like Theo are investigated. His mother told The Independent: “I walked in with a healthy baby. I’d looked after him for nine months and they killed him in the process of giving birth. The hospital get to write that he was stillborn, which obviously is a huge benefit to them, because the coroner can’t get involved, which to me is just staggering." Read full story Source: The Independent, 9 March 2021
  6. News Article
    NHS hospitals have been forced to pay millions of pounds to regulators after wrongly claiming their maternity units were among the safest in the country. Seven NHS trusts, including some now at the centre of major care scandals, will have to pay back a total of £8.5m after self-assessments of their maternity services were found to be false. Families whose babies died as a result of avoidable errors at some of the hospitals told The Independent it was further evidence of poor governance and management failings. NHS Resolution, which acts as the health service’s insurer for clinical negligence, launched the maternity incentive scheme in 2018 in an effort to focus action on 10 key safety areas in maternity, including ensuring they have systems in place to review deaths, monitor women and plan staffing levels as well as reporting incidents to the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch which investigates maternity incidents in the NHS. Among the trusts forced to give money back over the first two years of the scheme include Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust, which paid back £953,000. An inquiry into its maternity service found a dozen women and more than 40 babies died as a result of poor care in one of the largest maternity scandals in NHS history. East Kent Hospitals University Trust, which is facing an inquiry into baby deaths and a criminal prosecution by the Care Quality Commission over the death of baby Harry Richford in 2017, face paying back £2.1m over two years. Derek Richford, who helped expose failings at East Kent after the death of his grandson, told The Independent it was “abhorrent” that the trust claimed “vital NHS funds by falsely claiming that they had achieved 10/10 for maternity safety when the truth was in fact 6/10. East Kent Trust did this two years running and even when asked to check their submission, reconfirmed the erroneous data to NHS Resolution.” An evaluation of the scheme by NHS Resolution said it was “recognised that recent examples of poor governance from trusts in relation to the certification of submissions require further action”. Read full story Source: The Independent, 7 March 2021
  7. News Article
    Staff at a Midlands hospital trust told regulators they had repeatedly raised safety concerns internally without action being taken. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has downgraded maternity services at Worcestershire Acute Hospital from “good” to “requires improvement” following an inspection prompted by the whistleblowers’ concerns. Staff had reported “continuously escalating” staffing level concerns to senior managers, but said they got “no response”. Some said they were fearful of raising concerns internally. Whistleblowers also reported delays to induction of labour, with examples of women waiting up to a week to be induced instead of one to two days. Managers said women who suffered delays were risk assessed. The CQC also identified a risk women might not be informed of significant harm caused to them or their babies following an incident, due to the way the trust was grading some babies who were admitted to the neonatal unit. However, it added: “When things went wrong, staff apologised and gave patients honest information and suitable support.” The report added the trust’s leaders were aware of the challenges in maternity, but “timely” action was not always taken to address the concerns. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 19 February 2021
  8. News Article
    NHS guidance which often forces pregnant women who test positive with coronavirus to give birth alone is legally wrong, lawyers warned. Official guidance drawn up by NHS England states that if a woman tests positive for Covid, their husband or partner must self-isolate at home and is not allowed to support them during childbirth. But campaigners and lawyers told The Independent their guidance for visitor restrictions in maternity services during the pandemic is legally inaccurate as people have the “right to private and family life” under Article Eight of the Human Rights Act. Maria Booker, of Birthrights, a leading maternity care charity, said: “The NHS oversimplifies the government’s self-isolating Covid regulations and tells partners they have to stay at home. But this hasn’t taken into account the legal nuance that government rules state people can leave home if they have a reasonable excuse." “A woman being anxious about giving birth alone, which most people will be, is likely to legally constitute as a reasonable excuse." “It is completely inhumane for a woman to give birth without a partner or supporter. It is even scarier giving birth alone you are Covid positive. It is terrifying. Nobody should give birth alone and that includes Covid positive women.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 13 February 2021
  9. News Article
    Making maternity wards safer for mothers and babies will need £400m of extra spending every year, hospital leaders have told The Independent. They warn that without increased funding, the NHS will not be able to fully implement recommendations made by an inquiry into poor maternity care at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals Trust – where dozens of babies died or were left brain damaged in the largest maternity scandal in NHS history. Multiple maternity care failings at hospitals across the country in the past 12 months have sparked concerns over the safety of mothers and their babies with MPs on the Commons Health Select Committee launching an investigation into the issue last year. Hospital leaders say even just covering existing shortfalls of 3,000 midwives and recruiting 20 per cent more obstetricians, will cost at least £250m a year. To pay for extra anaesthetists, neonatal nurses and other support staff could push the cost to more than £400m. Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents hospital trusts, told The Independent that ministers faced a choice of either making the extra cash available or forcing the NHS to cut money elsewhere. In a letter to MPs on the committee, Mr Hopson urged them to demand extra funding in its forthcoming report on maternity safety in an effort to force ministers to confront the issue. Read full story Source: The Independent,9 February 2021,
  10. News Article
    An urgent inquiry to investigate how alleged systemic racism in the NHS manifests itself in maternity care will be launched on Tuesday with support from the UK charity Birthrights. The inquiry will apply a human rights lens to examine how claimed racial injustice – from explicit racism to bias – is leading to poorer health outcomes in maternity care for ethnic minority groups. Data published last month by MBRRACE-UK (Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries across the country) showed black women were four times more likely than white women to die in pregnancy or childbirth in the UK while women from Asian ethnic backgrounds face twice the risk. Barrister Shaheen Rahman QC, who will lead the inquiry, said: “In addition to these stark statistics there are concerns about higher rates of maternal illness, worse experiences of maternity care and the fact black and Asian pregnant women are far more likely to be admitted to hospital with COVID-19. “We want to understand the stories behind the statistics, to examine how people can be discriminated against due to their race and to identify ways this inequity can be redressed.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 7 February 2021
  11. News Article
    Failures to follow national guidelines to prevent group B Strep infections in newborn babies is leading to a postcode lottery of care and opportunities to stop deadly infections being missed, a new report has found. Nearly 90% of hospitals in the UK are not using the recommended test for GBS carriage – which costs around £11- despite clear guidance issued by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) and Public Health England (PHE) that the test can significantly decrease false-negative results. Group B Strep is the UK’s most common cause of severe infection in newborn babies, causing sepsis, pneumonia, and meningitis. Approximately 800 babies a year in the UK develop group B Strep infection in their first 3 months of life, 50 babies will die, with another 70 survivors left with life-changing disabilities. Most of these infections could be prevented. Only a tiny number of NHS Trusts are following the key new recommendations around giving pregnant women information on group B Strep, offering testing to some pregnant women, and following Public Health England guidelines on testing for group B Strep. As a result, pregnant women face a postcode lottery, potentially receiving significantly different care from recommended practice. Read full story Source: Group B Strep Support, 1 February 2021
  12. News Article
    Maternity staff are facing extreme burnout during the pandemic as staff shortages and longer, busier shift patterns lead to the workforce becoming increasingly overwhelmed, healthcare leaders warned. Senior figures working in pregnancy services told The Independent healthcare professionals are working longer hours, covering extra shifts around the clock, and spending more time on call to compensate for increasing numbers of employees taking time off work after getting coronavirus. Staff say stress-related absences have reached “worryingly” high levels, with junior doctors and midwives “thrown into the deep end” due to having to fill in for colleagues. Professionals argued the coronavirus crisis will lead to a rise in doctors, nurses and midwives suffering post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other mental health issues – raising concerns staff exhaustion could curb patient safety and standards of care. Read full story Source: The Independent, 31 January 2021
  13. News Article
    Two-thirds of women at the heart of a review into maternity services at a Welsh health board could have had very different outcomes if they had received better care, a report has found. The Independent Maternity Services Oversight Panel (Imsop) focused on the experiences of pregnant women at Cwm Taf Morgannwg health board. Its maternity services have been in special measures since "serious failings" were found two years ago. Concerns emerged in late 2018 that women and babies may have come to harm because of staff shortages and failures to report serious incidents. This sparked a major independent review, which gave a damning verdict on maternity services in Cwm Taf Morgannwg health board. Published on Monday, the Imsop report focuses on the care of mothers between January 2016 and September 2018. It found that 19 reviews of maternal care (68%) revealed at least one factor where "different management would reasonably have been expected to alter the outcome". The panel's chairman, Mick Giannasi, said: "These findings will be concerning and potentially distressing for the women and families involved, and it will be difficult for staff." "Of the 28 episodes of care, we concluded that in 27 of them, our independent teams who reviewed the care would have done something differently. Put simply, what went wrong, might not have gone wrong if things had been done differently." Read full story Source: BBC News, 25 January 2021
  14. News Article
    Hundreds of senior midwives are to be given new training to help improve culture and leadership across 126 NHS trusts. Patient safety minister Nadine Dorries said a new £500,000 maternity leadership programme would be rolled out later this year aimed at giving senior staff running maternity wards the skills and knowledge they need to boost culture and safety. Its one step towards improving the working relationships between midwives and obstetricians and follows the damning report by the Ockenden inquiry into decades of poor care at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals Trust. The report, published last month, highlighted leadership on maternity wards as a key factor in cases at the trust which led to preventable baby deaths and cases of neglect over many years. Announcing the fund, Nadine Dorries said: “The shocking and tragic findings of the Ockenden Review highlighted the importance of strengthening maternity leadership and oversight as well as fostering more collaborative approaches within maternity and neonatal services. “I’m pleased to announce a new training programme for NHS maternity leaders, which will empower nurses, midwives and obstetricians to get the best out of their teams, and deliver safe, world-class care to mothers and their babies.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 12 January 2021 Government press release
  15. News Article
    A third of stillbirths at two south Wales hospitals could have been prevented with better care or treatment, an investigation has concluded. It emerged two years ago that more than 60 women suffered the heartbreak of a stillbirth at at the Royal Glamorgan, Llantrisant, and Prince Charles Hospital, Merthyr Tydfil, and that many of these were never reported or investigated. An independent panel set up by the Welsh Government to oversee improvements in these maternity units has now concluded that many of these babies could have been saved. It looked at whether the care provided to women and their babies between January 2016 and September 2018 fell below the standards expected. The failures were split into different levels of severity, known in the report as "modifiable factors". Their investigation looked at 63 stillbirths between January 1, 2016, and September 30, 2018, and discovered that 21 (33%) of them had at least one "major modifiable factor", meaning the stillbirth could potentially have been avoided. More than half (59%) of the 63 had at least one "minor modifiable factor" while in three-quarters (76%) of them "wider learning" was required. In only four of the 63 stillbirths the panel found no modifiable factors. The panel also discovered that "areas for learning" were identified in 59 of the 63 episodes of care reviewed. Read full story Source: Wales Online, 5 October 2021 Read report
  16. News Article
    Bristol Children’s hospital tried to ‘deceive’ Ben Condon’s parents about his death, NHS ombudsman says An eight-week-old baby died after “a catalogue of failings” in his treatment at a children’s hospital, which then tried to “deceive” his parents about his death, an official inquiry has found. Doctors failed to spot that Ben Condon was suffering from a deadly bacterial infection and did not give him antibiotics until an hour before he died, the NHS ombudsman said. “We found that Ben and his family suffered serious injustice in consequence of the failings we found in his care and treatment,” the parliamentary and health service ombudsman said in a report that contained damning criticisms of Bristol Children’s hospital. The errors were all “lost opportunities” to help Ben recover from his illness and so increased the risk of him dying. Read the full article here Source: The Guardian Also covered in the Independent
  17. News Article
    The country’s largest clinical study is being launched in Greater Manchester to investigate the best gap between first and second Covid-19 vaccine doses for pregnant women. Led by St George’s, University of London, the Preg-CoV study will provide vital clinical trial data on the immune response to vaccination at different dose intervals – either four to six weeks or eight to 12 weeks. This data will help determine the best dosage interval and reveal more about how the vaccine works to protect pregnant mothers and their babies against Covid-19. Pregnant women are more likely to develop severe Covid-19 or die from the disease but are excluded from clinical trials with new vaccines. This means there are currently very limited clinical trial data on the immune response and side effects caused by the vaccines for these women. Read the full story here Source: National Health Executive
  18. News Article
    A catalogue of failures among prison and health professionals has been highlighted in an investigation report into the death of a teenager’s baby after she gave birth alone in her cell at the largest women’s prison in Europe. The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman published the devastating report into the events in September 2019 at HMP Bronzefield in Ashford, Middlesex on Wednesday. The case was first revealed by the Guardian and the baby’s death triggered 11 separate inquiries. The report details a disturbing series of events that culminated with the young woman, who cannot be named, being in “constant pain” on the night of 26 September and eventually passing out while giving birth. According to the report the teenager "appeared to have been regarded as difficult and having a ‘bad attitude’ rather than as a vulnerable 18-year-old, frightened that her baby would be taken away”. Failings included: There was confusion among different health professionals about her due date. The day before her baby was born she told a prison nurse she would kill herself or someone else if the baby was taken away from her, but this information was not adequately shared. On 26 September she was put on extended observation, meaning she should have been regularly checked but this did not happen. She rang the bell twice at 8.07pm and 8.32pm that day. A call was connected then immediately disconnected at 8.45pm. She did not press the bell again. Checks by prison officers at 9.27pm and 4.19am revealed “nothing untoward”. It was left to two prisoners to alert staff to the fact that there was blood in her cell at 8.21am on 27 September. Prisons and Probation ombudsman Sue McAllister said: “Ms A gave birth alone in her cell overnight without medical assistance. This should never have happened. Overall, the healthcare offered to Ms A in Bronzefield was not equivalent to that she could have expected in the community.” The publication of the report has triggered multiple calls for an end to the imprisonment of pregnant women from the Royal College of Midwives, NGOs and academics in the field. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 22 September 2021
  19. News Article
    Babies and mothers are at risk of injury and death because too many maternity units have not improved care despite a string of childbirth scandals, a Care Quality Commission (CQC) report has warned. In a highly critical report published on Tuesday, the CQC voiced serious concern that lessons are not being learned and that many incidents involving patients’ safety are still not being recorded. Some hospitals have been “too slow” to take the steps needed to make labour and birth safer, despite multiple inquiries, reports and recommendations to do so, it said. The CQC also found other persistent weaknesses in maternity care, including tension and difficulties between obstetric doctors and midwives and poor oversight of risks to patients during an in-depth inspection of maternity care at nine hospitals in England. The NHS has been criticised for major maternity scandals involving poor care, which sometimes persisted for many years, at trusts such as Morecambe Bay, East Kent and Shrewsbury and Telford. The government, NHS leaders and patients have pressed the NHS in England to overhaul maternity safety to reduce the number of babies being left brain-damaged or dead and mothers injured or dead as a result of poor care during childbirth. The watchdog also criticised hospitals for doing too little to seek the views from black, minority ethnic and poorer communities about how to improve their experience of giving birth. Black women are four times more likely to die in childbirth than white women, and Asian women twice as likely. “We know that many maternity services are providing good care, but we remain concerned that there has not been enough learning from good and outstanding services,” said Ted Baker, the regulator’s chief inspector of hospitals. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 21 September 2021
  20. News Article
    Maternity Action’s new research has found worrying failings in the administration of the NHS charging programme, leaving vulnerable women anxious and fearful about debts they cannot pay and deterring them from attending for care. Maternity Action’s new report Breach of Trust: a review of the implementation of the NHS charging programme in maternity services in England details how the implementation of the government’s NHS charging ‘overseas visitors’ programme within NHS Trusts poses a significant risk to migrant women’s health and wellbeing. The government insists that women who are vulnerable are adequately protected because the regulations make certain vulnerable groups exempt from NHS charging, such as refugees, asylum seekers, women who have been victims of modern slavery. The government have also stated that all maternity care should be deemed ‘immediately necessary’ and not refused due to an inability to repay. However the report has found that these legal safeguards are simply not working upon implementation in Trust settings. Many migrant women living in the UK are put at risk because they are deterred from accessing essential maternity care. Read full story Source: Maternity Action, 16 September 2021
  21. News Article
    Negligent maternity care in the NHS has cost taxpayers an “eye-watering” £8.2bn over the past 15 years, The Independent reveals. Ministers face calls to urgently increase spending to ensure maternity units are safe for women and babies by providing adequate staffing levels, training and equipment. New data, obtained by The Independent from NHS Resolution, which handles clinical negligence costs for the service, reveals that total payments made following settled cases and legal costs rose from £271m in 2006-07 to an estimated £920m in 2020-21. The number of maternity claims being made by families has almost doubled in the past decade, rising from 391 in 2009-10 to 765 in 2019-20. Recent maternity scandals at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust, East Kent Hospitals University Trust and at hospitals in Nottingham have all had common themes around poor culture, a lack of honesty and not enough staff or equipment. The Department of Health and Social Care is exploring how it can make changes to the UK clinical negligence system to reduce the costs to the taxpayer. Health minister Nadine Dorries told MPs on the Commons health committee in February that the reforms would look “across the NHS… not just maternity, at how issues of no-blame, no-fault compensation and clinical negligence are treated”. Read full story Source: The Independent, 20 September 2021
  22. News Article
    Folic acid is to be added to UK flour to help prevent spinal birth defects in babies, the government will announce. Women are advised to take the B vitamin - which can guard against spina bifida in unborn babies - before and during pregnancy, but many do not. It is thought that adding folic acid to flour could prevent up to 200 birth defects a year. Mandatory fortification - which the government ran a public consultation on in 2019 - would see everybody who ate foods such as bread getting more folic acid in their diets. Neural tube defects, such as spina bifida (abnormal development of the spine) and anencephaly, a life-limiting condition which affects the brain, affect about 1,000 pregnancies per year in the UK. Many babies diagnosed with spina bifida survive into adulthood, but will experience life-long impairment. Kate Steele, chief executive of Shine, a charity providing specialist support for people affected by spina bifida and hydrocephalus and which has campaigned for mandatory fortification of flour for more than 30 years, said she was "delighted" by the decision. "In its simplest terms, the step will reduce the numbers of families who face the devastating news that their baby has anencephaly and will not survive," she said. "It will also prevent some babies being affected by spina bifida, which can result in complex physical impairments and poor health." Read full story Source: BBC News, 20 September 2021
  23. News Article
    Changes to maternity services during the pandemic, including the mandatory redeployment of midwives and doctors to care for infected patients, may have affected the care given to women who had stillborn babies, a Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB) investigation has found. The safety watchdog launched an investigation after the number of stillbirths after the onset of labour increased between April and June 2020. During the three months there were 45 stillbirths compared to 24 in the same period in 2019. The HSIB launched a probe examining the care of 37 cases. Among its findings the watchdog said staffing levels were affected because of the NHS response to the pandemic. In its report it said this “influenced normal work patterns and the consistency and availability of clinicians.” As an example, in one maternity unit the staffing numbers were short by three midwives due to sickness and redeployment. In another consultant presence was reduced overnight. During the pandemic both the Royal College of Midwives and the Royal College of Obstetricians criticised NHS trusts for redeploying maternity staff when mothers continued to need services regardless of the pandemic. HSIB said none of the women in its report were recorded as having the virus, but it found the pressures and changes as a result of the pandemic may have affected the care they received. The study stressed that the proportion of consultations undertaken remotely was not known and "the impact of remote consultations is not clear from this review". Read full story Source: The Independent, 16 September 2021
  24. News Article
    A hospital has admitted liability for the death of a baby who was delivered stillborn three days after his mother’s complaints of fluid loss and severe pain were dismissed as wetting the bed. Jacob Jackson could have been born healthy, Shrewsbury and Telford hospital trust (Sath) has accepted, if it had arranged an earlier delivery in October 2018 as his mother, Charlotte, had suggested. The incident happened 18 months after an external review had been ordered into serious maternity failings at the trust, which are now known to be the biggest maternity scandal in the history of the NHS. Charlotte said: “It makes me feel sick to my stomach that they knew there were problems – this sort of thing had been going on for decades. We keep getting fed the same lines that ‘lessons have been learned’. If lessons had been learned parents and babies wouldn’t be going through this.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 6 September 2021
  25. News Article
    Glen Burley, an acute trust chief executive has said NHS England risks ‘levelling down’ safety in some maternity services by ‘disproportionately’ directing additional funding to struggling trusts. This comes after NHS England said the funding prioritised the trusts which needed the most support to meet the essential actions in the Ockenden Report, where in March, NHSE invited trusts to bid for a share of £96m extra funding for maternity services. A spokeswoman for NHS England has said: “The NHS made an additional £96m investment in maternity services following the Ockenden Review, the majority of which will bolster the workforce by funding an additional 1,200 midwives and 100 obstetricians. While the funding for additional workforce is for all NHS trusts, it is right that those who most need the support are prioritised.” Read full story. Source: HSJ, 02 September 2021
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