Jump to content

Search the hub

Showing results for tags 'Maternity'.

More search options

  • Search By Tags

    Start to type the tag you want to use, then select from the list.

  • Search By Author

Content Type


Forums

  • All
    • Commissioning, service provision and innovation in health and care
    • Coronavirus (COVID-19)
    • Culture
    • Improving patient safety
    • Investigations, risk management and legal issues
    • Leadership for patient safety
    • Organisations linked to patient safety (UK and beyond)
    • Patient engagement
    • Patient safety in health and care
    • Patient Safety Learning
    • Professionalising patient safety
    • Research, data and insight
    • Miscellaneous

Categories

  • Commissioning, service provision and innovation in health and care
    • Commissioning and funding patient safety
    • Digital health and care service provision
    • Health records and plans
    • Innovation programmes in health and care
    • Climate change/sustainability
  • Coronavirus (COVID-19)
    • Blogs
    • Data, research and statistics
    • Frontline insights during the pandemic
    • Good practice and useful resources
    • Guidance
    • Mental health
    • Exit strategies
    • Patient recovery
    • Questions around Government governance
  • Culture
    • Bullying and fear
    • Good practice
    • Occupational health and safety
    • Safety culture programmes
    • Second victim
    • Speak Up Guardians
    • Staff safety
    • Whistle blowing
  • Improving patient safety
    • Clinical governance and audits
    • Design for safety
    • Disasters averted/near misses
    • Equipment and facilities
    • Error traps
    • Health inequalities
    • Human factors (improving human performance in care delivery)
    • Improving systems of care
    • Implementation of improvements
    • International development and humanitarian
    • Safety stories
    • Stories from the front line
    • Workforce and resources
  • Investigations, risk management and legal issues
    • Investigations and complaints
    • Risk management and legal issues
  • Leadership for patient safety
    • Business case for patient safety
    • Boards
    • Clinical leadership
    • Exec teams
    • Inquiries
    • International reports
    • National/Governmental
    • Patient Safety Commissioner
    • Quality and safety reports
    • Techniques
    • Other
  • Organisations linked to patient safety (UK and beyond)
    • Government and ALB direction and guidance
    • International patient safety
    • Regulators and their regulations
  • Patient engagement
    • Consent and privacy
    • Harmed care patient pathways/post-incident pathways
    • How to engage for patient safety
    • Keeping patients safe
    • Patient-centred care
    • Patient Safety Partners
    • Patient stories
  • Patient safety in health and care
    • Care settings
    • Conditions
    • Diagnosis
    • High risk areas
    • Learning disabilities
    • Medication
    • Mental health
    • Men's health
    • Patient management
    • Social care
    • Transitions of care
    • Women's health
  • Patient Safety Learning
    • Patient Safety Learning campaigns
    • Patient Safety Learning documents
    • Patient Safety Standards
    • 2-minute Tuesdays
    • Patient Safety Learning Annual Conference 2019
    • Patient Safety Learning Annual Conference 2018
    • Patient Safety Learning Awards 2019
    • Patient Safety Learning Interviews
    • Patient Safety Learning webinars
  • Professionalising patient safety
    • Accreditation for patient safety
    • Competency framework
    • Medical students
    • Patient safety standards
    • Training & education
  • Research, data and insight
    • Data and insight
    • Research
  • Miscellaneous

News

  • News

Find results in...

Find results that contain...


Date Created

  • Start
    End

Last updated

  • Start
    End

Filter by number of...

Joined

  • Start

    End

Group

First name

Last name

Country

Join a private group (if appropriate)

About me

Organisation

Role

Found 815 results
  1. News Article
    A baby died during birth because of systemic errors in one of Britain's largest NHS hospitals, months after staff had warned hospital chiefs that the maternity unit was “unsafe”, an inquest has found. A coroner ruled that neglect by staff at Nottingham University Hospitals Trust contributed to the death of baby Wynter Andrews last year. She was delivered by caesarean section on 15 September after significant delays. Her umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck and leg, resulting in her being starved of oxygen. In a verdict on Wednesday, assistant coroner Laurinda Bower said Wynter would have survived if action had been taken sooner, criticising the units “unsafe culture” and warning that her death was not an isolated incident. Wynter’s mother, Sarah Andrews, called on the health secretary, Matt Hancock, to investigate the trust’s maternity unit. She said: “We know Wynter isn’t an isolated incident; there have been other baby deaths arising because of the trust’s systemic failings. She was a victim of the trust’s unsafe culture and practices.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 7 October 2020
  2. Content Article
    Suzette Woodward reflects on the recent reports and research into maternal safety and why we need to shift to a Safety II approach.
  3. Content Article
    The aim of this study from Jardine et al. was to determine the rate of complicated birth at term in women classified at low risk according to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guideline for intrapartum care (no pre-existing medical conditions, important obstetric history, or complications during pregnancy) and to assess if the risk classification can be improved by considering parity and the number of risk factors. The authors found nulliparous women without risk factors have substantially higher rates of complicated birth than multiparous women without a previous caesarean section even if the latter have multiple risk factors. Grouping women first according to parity and previous mode of birth, and then within these groups according to presence of specific risk factors would provide greater and more informed choice to women, better targeting of interventions, and fewer transfers during labour than according to the presence of risk factors alone.
  4. News Article
    The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is to target poorly performing NHS maternity units after a series of maternity scandals. It is drawing up plans to spot high-risk maternity units and will use data on their patient outcomes and culture to draw up a list of facilities for targeted inspection. The watchdog has voiced concerns over the wider safety of maternity units in the NHS after a number of high-profile maternity scandals in the past year. Almost two-fifths of maternity units, 38%, are rated as “requires improvement” by the CQC for their safety. The Independent has joined with charity Baby Lifeline to call on the government to reinstate a national maternity safety training fund for doctors and midwives. The fund was found to be successful but axed after just one year. On Tuesday, the CQC’s chief inspector of hospitals, Professor Ted Baker, told MPs on the Commons Health and Social Care Committee that he was concerned about the safety of mothers and babies in some maternity units which had persistent problems. “Those problems are of dysfunction, poor leadership, of poor culture, of parts of the services not working well together,” he said. “This is not just a few units; this is a significant cultural issue across maternity services.” Now the CQC has confirmed it is planning to draw up a list of poor-performing units or hospitals where it suspects there could be safety issues. The new inspection programme will specifically look at issues around outcomes and teamworking culture although the full methodology has yet to be decided. Read full story Source: The Independent, 4 October 2020
  5. Content Article
    In this guest blog for mumsnet, Nadine Montgomery talks about her journey to the Supreme Court to cement patients’ right to make an informed decision. Nadine highlights the lack of information she was given around potential birth risks as a diabetic pregnant women and how, if better informed, she would have made different choices which could have prevented her baby from suffering harm.
  6. Content Article
    Everybody has a right to good care. Much attention is rightly focused on the occasions when people experience poor quality care, but it is also important to recognise where care is good and to celebrate the services that are getting it right. Some care providers do things well through innovative new ways of working, or by doing the basics well. Others can learn from them and solutions should be shared across the system. This publication from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) is purposely focused on celebrating good and outstanding care that CQC's inspectors have seen.
  7. News Article
    Almost nine in ten maternity services experienced a decline in emergency pregnancy appointments during the pandemic due to women avoiding healthcare providers amid coronavirus chaos, a study has found. The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, who carried out the research, said women refrained from attending appointments due to anxiety around going into a hospital and fears of overwhelming the NHS, as well as not being clear if the appointments were essential. Researchers found 70% of maternity services reported a reduction in antenatal appointments, while 60% of units stopped the option of giving birth at home or in a midwife-led unit. Over half of services said postnatal appointments after childbirth had been reduced. The findings come as maternity services warn staff must not be sent to work in other parts of the hospital in the wake of a second wave of coronavirus. Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists and the Royal College of Midwives, who together represent the overwhelming bulk of maternity staff, say there must not be a repeat of the acute and widespread maternity staff shortages which played out during the health emergency’s peak. Read full story Source: The Independent, 30 September 2020
  8. Content Article
    This is a video recording of a formal meeting (oral evidence session) of the Health and Social Care Select Committee on Tuesday 29 September 2020, as part of their inquiry looking at the Safety of maternity services in England.
  9. News Article
    Too many English hospitals risk repeating maternity scandals involving avoidable baby deaths and brain injury because staff are too frightened to raise concerns, the chief inspector of hospitals has warned. Speaking at the opening session of an inquiry into the safety of maternity units by the health select committee, Prof Ted Baker, chief inspector of hospitals for the Care Quality Commission, said: “There are too many cases when tragedy strikes because services are not not doing their job well enough.” Baker admitted that 38% of such services were deemed to require improvement for patient safety and some could get even worse. “There is a significant number of services that are not achieving the level of safety they should,” he said. He said many NHS maternity units were in danger of repeating fatal mistakes made at what became the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS foundation trust (UHMBT), despite a high profile 2015 report finding that a “lethal mix” of failings at almost every level led to the unnecessary deaths of one mother and 11 babies. “Five years on from Morecombe Bay we have still not learned all the lessons,” Baker said. “[The] Morecombe Bay [report] did talk about about dysfunctional teams and midwives and obstetricians not working effectively together, and poor investigations without learning taking place. And I think those elements are what we are still finding in other services.” Baker urged hospital managers to encourage staff to whistleblow about problems without fear of recrimination. He said: “The reason why people are frightened to raise concerns is because of the culture in the units in which they work. A healthy culture would mean that people routinely raise concerns. But raising concerns is regarded as being a difficult member of the team.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 29 September 2020
  10. Content Article
    As hospitals in the US braced for the onslaught of coronavirus cases this past spring, they radically restructured and reorganised to help ease the burden on staff and minimise transmission within the hospital. Along with ceasing elective surgeries and transforming floors to allow for care of intubated patients, visitors were forbidden from entering hospitals with few exceptions. Now, several months removed from the peak of the pandemic, a limited number of visitors are allowed at a time. While limiting visitors allows some additional element of physical distancing, how much does a ban actually help our patients, and how much does it hurt them — especially mothers-to-be in the vulnerable perinatal period? Is it possible to limit visitor-spread virus while allowing our patients the dignity and the peace of companionship during one of the most stressful periods of their lives? In this blog, Byrne and Goldfarb look at the consequences of limiting visitors during the pandemic and considers the negative effect this may have on the health of the patient.
  11. Content Article
    This study from the THIS Institute, published in BMJ Quality and Safety, seeks to characterise features of safe care in maternity units. Hospital-based maternity units in the study displayed features that reinforce each other to optimise safety. The paper describes these features in a plain language framework, the For Us – For Unit Safety framework. Preventable harm in maternity care has devastating consequences for families, and the associated negligence claims create huge costs for the NHS. Reducing harm in maternity care is a major priority to protect families and NHS sustainability. Much work to date has focused on identifying what goes wrong in maternity care. This study takes a fresh, positive perspective and shares learning about what good looks like for safety in maternity units. The result is the For Us framework, which identifies the behaviours and practices that appear to be features of safe care in hospital-based maternity units. The framework doesn’t tell staff working in maternity units what to do. Instead it aims to aid reflection and collective learning and to target improvement efforts. It is an evidence-based framework that aims to support staff working in maternity units to reflect on what good looks like in a safe maternity unit, to identify and agree on priorities for improvement, celebrate achievements, or to make a case for increasing investment to achieve safety.
  12. News Article
    Parents affected by serious failings in maternity units at a Welsh health board will be told of the findings of an independent investigation this autumn. Ten more cases at units run by Cwm Taf Morgannwg in the south Wales valleys have been found by a review, bringing the total number to 160. Maternity services at hospitals in Merthyr Tydfil and Llantrisant were placed in special measures last year. Failings at the maternity units were discovered after an investigation by two Royal Colleges, which found mothers faced "distressing experiences and poor care" between 2016 and 2018. The services at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital in Llantrisant and Prince Charles Hospital in Merthyr Tydfil were also found to be "extremely dysfunctional" and under extreme pressure. A number of recommendations were set to make the service safe for pregnant women and those giving birth at the hospitals. The Welsh Government then appointed the Independent Maternity Services Oversight Panel (IMSOP) to look back at cases, including neonatal deaths. Mick Giannasi, the chairman of IMSOP, said: "In the early autumn, we will start writing to mothers to say we have reviewed your care and this is what we found. "That will be quite distressing for the women because they will have to revisit all those things again. "But it's going to be a difficult period for staff as well because we know that the Royal Colleges review was very difficult for staff - some of the messages that they had to hear were very challenging and those things may be played out again." Read full story Source: BBC News, 28 September 2020
  13. Content Article
    Lockdown has been a seismic shock for every family and community. Sadly, the voices of the hardest hit have been heard the least. This report sets about to change this by exploring pandemic and lockdown reflections from a diverse group of expectant and new parents during the critical first months and years of their babies’ development. Charities Best Beginnings, Home-Start UK and Parent-Infant Foundation were alarmed that the voices of parents with new babies have been absent from key pandemic responses. As a result, they worked with Critical Research to survey 5,000 new and expectant parents on their lockdown experiences and found a mixed picture, shining a light on huge disparities between different families and communities.
  14. News Article
    Hospitals have been ordered to allow partners and visitors onto maternity wards so pregnant women are not forced to give birth on their own. NHS England and NHS Improvement have written to all of the directors of nursing and heads of midwifery to ask them to urgently change the rules around visiting. The letter, which is dated 19 September and seen by The Independent, says NHS guidance was released on 8 September so partners and visitors can attend maternity units now “the peak of the first wave has passed”. “We thank you and are grateful the majority of services have quickly implemented this guidance and relaxed visiting restrictions,” it reads. “To those that are still working through the guidance, this must happen now so that partners are able to attend maternity units for appointments and births.” The letter adds: “Pregnancy can be a stressful time for women and their families, and all the more so during a pandemic, so it is vital that everything possible is done to support them through this time.” Make Birth Better, a campaign group which polled 458 pregnant women for a new study they shared exclusively, said mothers-to-be have been forced to give birth without partners and have had less access to pain relief in the wake of the public health crisis. Half of those polled were forced to alter their own childbirth plans as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak – while almost half of those who were dependant on support from a specialist mental health midwife said help had stopped. Read full story Source: The Independent, 23 September 2020
  15. News Article
    Covid has brought many hidden tragedies: elderly residents in care homes bereft of family visits, families in quarantine missing loved one’s funerals, and mums forced to go through labour alone. Much of this has been necessary, however painful, but Jeremy Hunt fears we’re getting the balance badly wrong in maternity care. That’s why he is backing The Mail on Sunday’s campaign to end lone births, which has been championed in Parliament by Alicia Kearns. Infection control in hospitals is critically important, but mothers’ mental health can’t be pushed down the priority list. Imagine the agony of a new mum sent for a scan on her own, only to be told that her much longed-for baby has no heartbeat. Or the woman labouring in agony for hours who is told she is not yet sufficiently dilated to merit her partner joining her for moral support. "I have heard some truly heartbreaking stories, which quite frankly should have no place in a modern, compassionate health service. One woman who gave birth to a stillborn baby alone at 41 weeks; another woman who was left alone after surgery due to a miscarriage at 12 weeks," says Jeremy. Perhaps most concerningly of all, there are reports of partners being asked to leave their new babies and often traumatised mothers almost immediately after birth. That means they miss out on vital bonding time and mums lose crucial support to help them recover mentally and physically, in some cases with partners not allowed back to meet their new child properly for several days. "This is a question of basic compassion and decency – the very values that the NHS embodies and the reason we’re all so proud of our universal health service – so we need every hospital to commit to urgent action without delay." Read full story Source: MailOnline, 19 September 2020
  16. News Article
    Yesterday marked the second World Patient Safety Day, and this year’s theme shined a light on health worker safety – those on the frontline of the pandemic have been selfless in their sacrifices to care for an ailing global population. What has become ever clearer is that a health system is nothing without those who work within it and that we must prioritise the safety and wellbeing of health workers, because without safe health workers we cannot have safe patients. Improving maternity safety has been a priority for some time – although rare, when things go wrong the consequences are unthinkable for families and the professionals caring for them. Maternity negligence makes up 50% of the total value of negligence claims across all NHS sectors, according to the latest NHS Resolution annual report and accounts. It states there were claims of around £2.4 billion in 2019/20, which is in the region of £6.5 million a day. This cost says nothing of the suffering families and professionals associated. However, without investing in the maternity frontline we cannot hope to make integral systemic changes to improve maternity safety and save mothers’ and babies’ lives, writes Sara Ledger, head of research and development at Baby Lifeline in the Independent. "We owe it to every mother and baby to rigorously and transparently scrutinise the safety of maternity services, which will be in no small way linked to the support staff receive." Read full story Source: The Independent, 17 September 2020
  17. News Article
    Accidents on maternity wards cost the NHS nearly £1 billion last year, Jeremy Hunt, the chairman of the Commons health committee, has revealed. The former health secretary said the bill for maternity legal action was nearly twice the amount spent on maternity doctors in England. It was part of the NHS’s £2.4 billion total legal fees and compensation bill, up £137 million on the previous year. Mr Hunt has also told the Daily Mail there is evidence that hospitals are failing to provide details of avoidable deaths despite being ordered to do so three years ago as he highlighted “appalling high” figures which showed that up to 150 lives are being lost needlessly every week in public hospitals. Responding to the figures, Mr Hunt said: "Something has gone badly wrong." In 2017, he told trusts to publish data on the number of avoidable deaths among patients in their care. But freedom of information responses from 59 hospital trusts, about half the total, found less than a quarter gave meaningful data on avoidable deaths. Mr Hunt cited “major cultural challenges” which he blamed for preventing doctors and nurses from accepting any blame. He blamed lawyers who get involved “almost immediately” once something goes wrong with a patient’s care. “Doctors, nurses and midwives worry they could lose their licence if they are found to have made a mistake. Hospital managers worry about the reputation of their organisation,” he added. Mr Hunt said: “We have appallingly high levels of avoidable harm and death in our healthcare system. We seem to just accept it as inevitable.” An NHS spokesman said: “Delivering the safest possible health service for patients is a priority, and the national policy on learning from deaths is clear that hospitals must publish this information every three months, as well as an annual summary, so that they are clear about any problems that have been identified and how they are being addressed. Read full story Source: The Telegraph, 18 September 2020
  18. Content Article
    This website has been developed by Wendy Jones BSc, MSc, PhD, MRPharmS, a Community Pharmacist for over 40 years. This website is designed to provide information and support for mothers and healthcare professionals struggling to balance the benefits of breastfeeding with the perceived risk of exposing the baby to medication through his/her mother’s breastmilk.The information provided is based upon Wendy's many years experience gained as a pharmacist and from running the BfN national Drugs in Breastmilk Help-line.
  19. Content Article
    A framework has been developed by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG), Royal College of Midwives and the Society and College of Radiographers, in partnership with NHS England and NHS Improvement, to support maternity services with the local reintroduction of hospital visitors and individuals accompanying women to appointments. This framework has been designed to assist NHS trusts to reintroduce access for partners, visitors and other supporters of pregnant women in English maternity services. It applies to inpatient and outpatient settings. Reintroducing visits is challenging during a pandemic, and the priority must be the safety of all service users (including pregnant women), staff and visitors. 
  20. Content Article
    This was a debate from the Scottish Parliament on the 8 September 2020 concerning the recommendations in the recently published First Do No Harm report by the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review, chaired by Baroness Cumberlege (also known as the Cumberlege Review). The debate centred on a motion put forward by Jeane Freeman MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport, which read as follows: That the Parliament welcomes the recommendations made by Baroness Cumberlege in her report on the independent medicines and medical devices safety review; acknowledges the Scottish Government's apology to women and families affected by Primodos, sodium valproate and transvaginal mesh; welcomes the Scottish Government’s commitment to establish a Patient Safety Commissioner, and notes the actions taken by the Scottish Government to offer improved services for women who have suffered complications as a result of transvaginal mesh.
  21. Content Article
    This Postnatal Risk Assessment Matrix (PRAM) resource was developed by Dr Cindy Shawley, Quality Improvement Lead for Maternity at Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. The pack includes a number of monitoring and assessment tools to help keep mums and babies safe. The following two sections have been selected for the finals of the Nursing Times Awards, under the Patient Safety category: The First Hour of Care: Keeping mums and babies together (a proforma and pathway to promote normal adaptation to life) Holding your baby safely poster (as referenced in the recent National Learning Report, Neonatal collapse alongside skin-to-skin contact) Please open the attached documents to view the full PRAM resource pack as well as the two award-nominated sections that can be downloaded independently.  Many thanks to Dr Shawley for giving permission to share these important patient safety resources on the hub.
  22. News Article
    A majority of pregnant women who died from coronavirus during the peak of the pandemic were from an ethnic minority background, it has emerged. A new study of more than a dozen women who died between March and May this year also heavily criticised the reorganisation of NHS services which it said contributed to poor care and the deaths of some of the women. This included one woman who was twice denied an intensive care bed because there were none available, as well as women treated by inexperienced staff who had been redeployed by hospitals and who made mistakes in their treatment of the women. The report, by experts at the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit, based at the University of Oxford, also criticised mental health services after four women died by suicide. The report said women were “bounced” between services which had stopped face-to-face assessments during the crisis. The report looked at 16 women’s deaths in total. Eight women died from COVID-19, seven of whom had an ethnic minority background. Two women with Covid-19 died from unrelated causes, four died by suicide and two were victims of homicide. In the report, published on Thursday, the authors concluded improvements in care could have been made in 13 of the deaths they examined. In six cases, improvements in care could have meant they survived. Read full story Source: The Independent, 21 August 2020
  23. Content Article
    The emergence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus led to immediate concerns about the impact of infection on pregnant women. In response to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic the MBRRACE-UK team instituted rapid notification of maternal deaths associated with SARS-CoV-2, following which notifications of SARS-CoV-2-associated maternal deaths were received in early April 2020. Expedited reviews were conducted into all deaths of women with confirmed or suspected SARS-CoV-2 infection during or up to one year after pregnancy, and any deaths of women who died from mental health-related causes or domestic violence, which might have been influenced by public health measures introduced to control the epidemic such as lockdown. This rapid report aims to identify lessons learned to guide future care and pathway changes in the context of infection transmission and the need for public health and NHS service measures to prevent infection.
  24. News Article
    High-risk women at a maternity unit were not monitored closely enough and there was a "lack of learning" from a mother's death, inspectors found. A Care Qualtiy Commission (CQC) report rated the unit at Basildon University Hospital as inadequate with "failings" found in six other serious cases. Inspectors carried out unannounced checks in June after a whistleblower voiced fears about patient safety. The unit was criticised following the deaths of baby Ennis Pecaku in September 2018 and mother Gabriela Pintilie, 36, in February 2019. The CQC previously carried out an inspection of the department the month Mrs Pintilie died and said the unit, which had once been rated outstanding, required improvement. Inspectors returned for the surprise "focused" inspection after being contacted by an anonymous whistleblower. The report found babies were born in a poor condition and then transferred for cooling therapy, which can be offered for newborn babies with brain injury caused by oxygen shortage during birth. During their visit, inspectors found: High-risk women giving birth in a low-risk area. Not enough staff with the right skills and experience. "Dysfunctional" working between midwives, doctors and consultants, which had an impact on the "increased number of safety incidents reported". Concerns over foetal heart monitoring. Women being referred to by room numbers instead of their names. A "lack of response by consultants to emergencies" resulting in delays The CQC also referred to issues relating to the death of Mrs Pintilie, who was not named in the report, and said five serious incidents "identified the same failings of care". Read full story Source: BBC News, 18 August 2020 "This demonstrated there had been a lack of learning from previous incidents and actions put in place were not embedded."
  25. Content Article
    The Health Service Journal (HSJ) Health Check investigates what’s going on at East Kent Hospitals University Foundation Trust – an organisation which has seen well over its fair share of COVID-related deaths since the start of June.  In this podcast, the HSJ discuss the leadership challenges faced by the trust over many years, its ongoing maternity scandal, and how its persisting battle with coronavirus doesn’t fit with the new national narrative of recovery. Featuring Alison Moore, Annabelle Collins and Alastair Mclellan.
×
×
  • Create New...