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

Categories

  • Files

Calendars

  • Community Calendar

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. Content Article
    Race and ethnicity have been associated with poor pregnancy outcomes in many countries. In the UK, the rates of baby death and stillbirth among Black and Asian mothers are double those for White women. Most studies examine trends for individual countries. This large database study explored how race and ethnicity is linked to pregnancy outcomes in wealthy countries. Key findings Black women consistently had worse outcomes than White women across the globe.  Hispanic women were three times more likely to experience baby death compared with White women.  South Asian women had an increased risk of early birth and having a baby with an unexpectedly low weight (small for the length of pregnancy) compared with White women.  Racial disparities in some outcomes were found in all regions. The researchers call for a global, joined-up approach to tackling disparities. Breaking down barriers to care for ethnic minorities, particularly Black women, could help. More research is needed to understand why outcomes are for worse for ethnic minorities. The researchers recommend routine collection of data on race and ethnicity. The link below takes you to the Plain English summary of the research, you can also view the full research study.
  2. News Article
    More than three quarters of all multimillion-pound NHS medical negligence payouts are the consequences of failures in maternity care, new figures show. In total, 364 patients or families received the highest-value compensation payments of at least £3.5 million after suing the NHS last year. Of those, 279 (77%) were maternity-related damages, according to figures from NHS Resolution. The large payouts have been offered to parents whose babies were stillborn or suffered avoidable life-changing disabilities or brain injuries. Maternity makes up the bulk of NHS compensation payments. There were more than 10,000 clinical negligence claims brought against the NHS in 2021-22, with a total value of more than £6 billion. Maternity accounted for 62% of payments, or £3.74 billion. When taking into account all cost of harm, including future periodic payments and legal costs, the cost of compensating mothers and their families rises to £8.2 billion a year. Analysis by The Times Health Commission found that this is more than twice the £3 billion spent by the NHS annually on maternity and neonatal services. Maternity claims have increased during the past decade amid a string of high-profile scandals and a shortage of midwives. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 12 June 2023
  3. Content Article
    An NHS consultant who was sacked after whistleblowing says it was because he raised concerns that “normal birth” ideology was putting the lives of women and babies at risk. Martyn Pitman, a respected obstetrician and gynaecologist, became a whistleblower to prevent “avoidable disasters” in NHS maternity care, but it cost him his career. Pitman lost his job last month after more than 20 years as a consultant at Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester. His bosses cited an “irretrievable breakdown in his relationship with management”. His dismissal caused outrage from hundreds of former patients and doctors’ leaders, who say it highlights an NHS culture of “punishing those who dare to speak out”.
  4. Content Article
    This study in BMJ Open Quality aimed to assess the patient safety status in selected hospitals in Ghana. The authors concluded that the current patient safety status in the hospitals in the study was generally good, with the highest score in the knowledge and learning in the patient safety domain. Patient safety surveillance was identified as the weakest action area.
  5. Content Article
    The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Evidence Collections draw together evidence from important NIHR-funded and wider research. They aim to help people in policy and practice understand recent important research in a topic area. The most recent Collection is Maternity services: evidence for improvement. In this blog, one of the Collection's authors, Candace Imison, describes how it was framed by the findings from a recent investigation into failings in East Kent Hospitals’ maternity services. She focuses on some key messages from evidence on how to identify poor performance and provide effective board governance and oversight.
  6. News Article
    An NHS maternity department has been handed a warning notice by the health regulator because of safety failings. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) said it was taking the action over the James Paget Hospital in Norfolk to prevent patients coming to harm. Inspectors found the unit did not have enough staff to care for women and babies and keep them safe. The maternity department has been deemed "inadequate" by the CQC, which meant the overall rating for the hospital has now dropped from "good" to "requires improvement". Between June and November 2022 there were 30 maternity "red flags" that the inspectors found, of which more than half related to delays or cancellations to time-critical activity. In one instance, there was a delay in recognising a serious health problem and taking the appropriate action. The report also highlighted the service did not have enough maternity staff with the right qualifications, skills, training and experience "to keep women safe from avoidable harm and to provide the right care and treatment". Read full story Source: BBC News, 31 May 2023
  7. News Article
    The Royal College of Midwives says the need for a maternity strategy in Northern Ireland has gone beyond urgent and is now critical. The warning comes as the RCM is publishing a report on Northern Ireland's maternity services at Stormont on Tuesday. The report will highlight growing challenges as more women across the country with additional health needs are being cared for by maternity services. The RCM report will outline three steps to deliver high quality and safe services for women and families. Develop, publish and fund the implementation of a new maternity and neonatal strategy for Northern Ireland. Sustain the number of places for new student midwives at their recent, higher level. Focus on retaining the midwives in the HSC. Read full story Source: ITV News, 30 May 2023
  8. Content Article
    In March 2019, NHS England published Saving Babies Lives version 2, which included information for providers and commissioners of maternity care on how to reduce perinatal mortality across England. One element of this recommends the appointment of a fetal monitoring lead with the responsibility of improving the standard of fetal monitoring. The aim of the fetal monitoring lead is to support staff working on the labour ward to provide high quality intrapartum risk assessments and accurate CTG interpretation and should contribute to building and sustaining a safety culture on the labour ward with all staff committed to continuous improvement. The importance of fetal monitoring was highlighted again in the Ockenden Report, published December 2020. The report recommended, as an essential action, that all maternity services must appoint a dedicated lead midwife and lead obstetrician, both with demonstrated expertise, to focus on and champion best practice in fetal monitoring. Monitoring May is a month long learning event based around fetal monitoring, human factors, maternity safety and shared learning. The East Midlands Academic Health Sciences Network has shared the recording of Monitoring May’s discussions and presentations.
  9. News Article
    After health inspectors considered closing a maternity unit over safety fears, the BBC's Michael Buchanan looks at a near-decade of poor care at East Kent Hospitals NHS Trust. "I've been telling you for months. The place is getting worse." The message in February, which Michael received from a member of the maternity team, was stark but unsurprising. In a series of texts over the previous few months, the person had been getting increasingly concerned about what was happening at the East Kent trust. The leadership is "totally ineffective" read one message. "How long do we have to keep hearing this narrative - we accept bad things happened, we have learned and are putting it right. Nothing changes." Friday's report from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) is unfortunately just the latest marker in a near-decade of failure to improve maternity care at the trust. The revelation that inspectors considered closing the unit at the William Harvey Hospital in Ashford comes nine years after the trust's head of midwifery made a similar recommendation for the same reasons - that it was a danger to women and babies. The failure to act decisively then allowed many poor practices to continue. Read full story Source: BBC News, 28 May 2023
  10. News Article
    Health inspectors considered shutting down a maternity unit earlier this year over safety concerns. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) instead called for "immediate improvements" following a visit to the William Harvey hospital in Ashford, Kent. Helen Gittos, whose newborn daughter died in the care of the East Kent Hospitals Trust, said there were "fundamental" problems at the trust. The inspection of East Kent's William Harvey hospital laid bare multiple instances of inadequate practices at the unit, including staff failing to wash their hands after each patient, and life-saving equipment not being in the right place. Days after the visit, the watchdog raised safety concerns and threatened the trust with enforcement action to ensure patients are protected. Ms Gittos, whose baby Harriet was born at the East Kent trust's Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Hospital (QEQM) in 2014 and died eight days later, said: "When my daughter Harriet was born, the then head of midwifery was so concerned about safety that she thought that the William Harvey in particular should be closed down." She told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Here we are, almost nine years later, in a similar kind of situation. What has been happening has not worked. "I keep being surprised at how possible it is to keep being shocked about all of this, but I am shocked, that under so much scrutiny, and with so much external help, it's still the case that so much is not right. "The problems that are revealed are so fundamental that we have to do things differently." Read full story Source: BBC News, 26 May 2023
  11. News Article
    Pregnant women and new mothers are facing wide variation in access to mental health support, new figures suggest, as NHS England admits national performance on a key long-term plan goal to expand services is ‘over a year behind trajectory’. Analysis of access rates for perinatal mental health services from NHS Digital shows the rates of women accessing support within the past 12 months range from 3.7 per cent in Humber and North Yorkshire to 15 per cent in Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin ICS. The long-term plan target is for 66,000 women per year to be accessing specialist perinatal services, which can help with conditions such as post-partum psychosis, by March 2024. NHSE admitted in its papers that “although access is increasing, performance remains over a year behind trajectory”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 25 May 2023
  12. Content Article
    In this blog Paul Whiteing, Chief Executive of AvMA, reflects on the recent report by the House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee on Black maternal health. Paul questions why these racial health disparities, that have long been reported on, have been allowed to continue over many decades and highlights the need for more challenging conversations as to wider root causes.   
  13. News Article
    Maternity services in Gloucestershire will remain shut for months because of staff shortages, it has been confirmed. The Aveta Birth Unit in Cheltenham and Stroud's post-natal facilities are not expected to re-open until at least October, bosses say. The announcement by Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust means women will have been unable to use the services for more than a year. Maternity campaigners say new mothers are not getting support they need. The trust said it had a long-term commitment to both units, but they cannot reopen safely at the moment. The Aveta unit has been shut since last June and Stroud's six postnatal beds have been closed since September. It means new mothers are forced to go home 12 hours after giving birth, or if they have medical needs being sent to Gloucestershire Royal Hospital. Read full story Source: BBC News, 19 May 2023
  14. Content Article
    Recently, there has been a concerning increase in the number of deaths of pregnant women, especially from Black, Asian and deprived backgrounds. In addition, there have been several investigations into safety issues in maternity services, such as the Ockenden, East Kent, and Shrewsbury and Telford report. This National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Collection highlights evidence in priority areas, identified in the East Kent report, to support high-quality care and avoid safety issues in maternity services.
  15. News Article
    An inquiry into maternity care failings at an NHS trust that left dozens of babies dead or brain-damaged is “wholly insufficient” because only a fraction of Black and Asian women have come forward, its chair has warned. Donna Ockenden, who is leading a review into Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, suggested the health service must do more to increase the number of responses from ethnic minorities if the trust is to learn from the scandal. Less than 20 families from Black and Asian communities are currently involved in the inquiry, compared to more than 250 white families, The Independent understands. It is understood letters have only been sent out in English, while Ms Ockenden pointed to examples of women being unable to access translation services and expectant Muslim mothers being turned away if they objected to male sonographers. She said the communities’ “mistrust” towards the trust had “deepened”, leaving the review team “climbing a mountain” to engage with them. Read full story Source: The Independent, 18 May 2023
  16. Content Article
    Healthcare systems rely on self-advocacy from service users to maintain the safety and quality of care. Systemic bias, service pressures and workforce issues often deny agency to patients at times when they need to have most control over representation of their story. This drives diagnostic error, treatment delay or failure to treat important conditions. In maternal care, perinatal mental health and thrombosis are significant challenges. With funding from SBRI Health care, Ulster University and Southern Health and Social Care Trust are developing an NLP powered platform that will empower mothers to be more active agents in their perinatal care. Download the poster below.
  17. News Article
    It was created with the very best of intentions – to help hospitals learn lessons when a baby or mother is harmed or dies. But a Channel 4 News investigation has been hearing that the maternity programme of the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch – or HSIB – was riddled with flaws. One former senior staff member spoke to Channel 4 about bullying within the organisation and failings which could have led to harm. In a previous report, Channel 4 heard from the mothers of Beatrice and Marnie, who were stillborn and other parents have come forward with their experience. Watch the story Source: Channel 4 News, 16 May 2023
  18. News Article
    Hundreds of babies are dying unnecessarily because overstretched maternity services are delivering substandard care and struggling to overcome entrenched poverty and racial inequalities, a report has warned. The report by baby loss charities Sands and Tommy’s says the government’s aim to halve the number of stillbirths and neonatal deaths in England by 2025 is stalling, while there is no target in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. Stillbirths are creeping up in England after falling in the past decade. Babies dying before and during delivery rose to just over four in every 1,000 births in 2021. Similarly, long-falling rates of neonatal deaths, where newborns die within the first four weeks of birth, are also rising. There were 1.4 deaths of newborn babies for every 1,000 births in 2021, compared with 1.3 in 2020. Robert Wilson, head of the charities’ joint policy unit, said the government and NHS need to make fundamental changes. “The UK is not making enough progress to reduce rates of pregnancy loss and baby death, and there are worrying signs that these rates are now heading in the wrong direction,” he said. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 14 May 2023
  19. Content Article
    In 2022 the charities Sands and Tommy’s came together to form a Joint Policy Unit. Together they are focussed on achieving policy change that will save more babies’ lives during pregnancy and the neonatal period and on tackling inequalities in loss, so that everyone can benefit from the best possible outcomes. This first report from the Unit brings together a range of evidence to identify the key changes needed to save more babies’ lives and reduce inequalities in pregnancy and baby loss. None of the individual data it contains is new, but it gives decision makers a clear view of where we are now, and where action is required to make progress.
  20. News Article
    The death rates for black women in childbirth were revealed in a recent report from MPs and were described as “appalling”, yet action, not words, are needed for what could be considered breaches of the Human Rights Act. Ministers are not giving priority to reducing the gap in health inequalities, write Nicola Wainwright and Suleikha Ali in a commentary to the Times. "If the response to the review is foot-dragging from the government and senior health service officials, then legal action may be the only way to draw focus to this issue and to try to reduce the number of ethnic minority women and babies dying unnecessarily." The report, published by the women and equalities committee last month, highlights the “glaring and persistent” disparities faced by ethnic minority women compared to their white counterparts with regards to pregnancy and birth. However, these same disparities have been known and reported on for 20 years, while progress on improving the situation has been shockingly slow. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 11 May 2023
  21. News Article
    A simple intervention to detect and treat postpartum haemorrhage could dramatically cut maternal mortality and morbidity worldwide, a large trial led by the University of Birmingham has shown. Use of a special drape to measure blood loss during childbirth and rapid deployment of a “bundle” of existing treatments reduced severe bleeding, the need for laparotomy, or maternal death by 60% in a study done in 80 hospitals across Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, and Tanzania. Reporting the results in the New England Journal of Medicine, the researchers said that postpartum haemorrhage was detected in 93.1% of patients in the intervention and in 51.1% of those receiving usual care. Read full story (paywalled) Source: BMJ, 10 May 2023
  22. News Article
    Figures showing the risk of maternal death being almost four times higher among women from black ethnic minority backgrounds compared with white women in the UK have been published. The figures, which relate to 2019 - 2021, have been released by MBRRACE-UK, a collaboration involving the University of Leicester. The MBRRACE-UK collaboration (Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries), led from Oxford Population Health's National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit, looked at data on women who died during, or up to six weeks after, pregnancy between 2019 and 2021 in the UK. The report showed the risk of maternal death in 2019 - 2021 was almost four times higher among women from black ethnic minority backgrounds compared with white women. Marian Knight, professor of Maternal and Child Population Health at Oxford Population Health and maternal reporting lead, said: "Persistent disparities in maternal health remain. "It is critical that we are working towards more inclusive care where women are listened to, their voices are heard, and we are acting upon what they are telling us." Read full story Source: BBC News, 11 May 2023
  23. Event
    until
    Learn from Dr Bill Kirkup and other key speakers about recent National Maternity Service Reviews and how they are changing practice. Register
  24. News Article
    Maternity services at a trust in Staffordshire have been rated as 'requires significant improvement' by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust in Stoke-on-Trent must now make urgent changes by June 30th 2023, to ensure patients are cared for safely. It follows an inspection in March where inspectors said staff did not have enough effective systems in place to ensure patients were looked after to the standard they should be. Staff also failed to implement a prioritisation process to ensure delays in the induction of labour were monitored and effectively managed, according to the review of services. The CQC said midwives evaluating patients and handling triage processes did not effectively assess, document and respond to the ongoing risks associated with safety through triage. Read full story Source: ITV News, 28 April 2023
  25. News Article
    Women are dying or suffering avoidable harm because of a failure to recognise ectopic pregnancy, one of the country’s leading experts on maternal health has said. Speaking to the Guardian, Prof Marian Knight of the University of Oxford, who leads a national research programme on maternal deaths, called for action to improve diagnosis of the acute, life-threatening condition, in which a fertilised egg implants itself outside the womb, normally in the fallopian tube. Ectopic pregnancies are never viable and if left untreated can result in the tube rupturing, causing potentially fatal internal bleeding. “We could prevent more women from dying from ectopic pregnancy because of lacking of basic recognition and management of the condition,” said Knight. The warning comes as new data obtained by freedom of information request suggests that dozens of women have experienced “severe harm” after being admitted to hospital with ectopic pregnancies in the past five years. The Mbrrace report, published last year, said eight women died from ectopic pregnancies between 2018 and 2020, all but one of whom had received suboptimal treatment. In three instances, better care might have saved their lives, the report concluded. “There’s no doubt that in the [maternal deaths] inquiry we are still seeing the same messages of ectopic pregnancy not being recognised,” said Knight. “That people either don’t pick up on the fact that they’re pregnant or get single-minded about one diagnosis.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 1 May 2023
×
×
  • Create New...