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
    • 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 802 results
  1. News Article
    The healthcare regulator has been branded “not fit for purpose” after dismissing warnings of the biggest maternity scandal in NHS history, The Telegraph can reveal. Letters seen by this newspaper show that the Care Quality Commission (CQC) told grieving parents it would not support an independent inquiry into baby deaths, just months before such an investigation was ordered. Rhiannon Davies wrote to the watchdog in Dec 2016, alerting the regulator to 19 avoidable deaths of mothers and babies at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, as well as a string of cases where lives were put at risk. However, the head of the CQC at the time assured Ms Davies that the culture was “changing for the positive”, rebuffing her calls for an independent inquiry. Ms Davies had provided the watchdog with details of a string of deaths, which she and fellow bereaved parents had found from publicly available information. The information was contained in a letter to Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary at the time, and shared with the regulator, setting out why families believed an inquiry was required. On Tuesday night, Ms Davies said that the refusal of the CQC to back an investigation, and the false assurances given by its most senior figure, showed how it “never scratched beneath the surface” despite death after death. Ms Davies said that she had “absolutely no faith” in its current ability to regulate and spot future scandals, saying it had “pushed back” every effort made by families to expose the failings at Shrewsbury. “They are not fit for purpose because we cannot trust them to be doing their job properly,” she told The Telegraph. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Telegraph, 5 April 2022
  2. News Article
    Dozens of families have written to the government expressing concern over a review into failing maternity units in Nottingham. A probe into Nottingham University Hospitals Trust is under way after dozens of babies died or were injured. But families say the review is "moving with the viscosity of treacle". They have called for Donna Ockenden, who led the inquiry into the UK's biggest maternity scandal, to take charge of a review. In a letter to Health Secretary Sajid Javid, a group of 100 people raised concerns with the current thematic review, which has been commissioned by the local clinical commissioning group (CCG) and NHS England, and NHS Improvement. According to the CCG, the review will look at themes and trends and put in "place detailed and measurable actions so improvements can be made fast". But families have questioned the independence of the review and the experience of the team to handle a probe of this magnitude. It is chaired by Cathy Purt, a long-time NHS manager who the families believe has no experience of running complex inquiries or maternity services. The letter states: "If families are to be safeguarded, real intervention is required." Read full story Source: BBC News, 7 April 2022
  3. News Article
    Hospital inspectors have uncovered repeated maternity failings and expressed serious concern about the safety of mothers and babies in Sheffield just days after a damning report warned there had been hundreds of avoidable baby deaths in Shrewsbury. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) found Sheffield teaching hospitals NHS foundation trust, one of the largest NHS trusts in England, had failed to make the required improvements to services when it visited in October and November, despite receiving previous warnings from the watchdog. As well as concerns across the wider trust, a focused inspection on maternity raised significant issues about the way its service is run. When it came to medical staff at the Sheffield trust, the “service did not have enough medical staff with the right qualifications, skills, and experience to keep women and babies safe from avoidable harm and to provide the right care and treatment”, the report said. Inspectors found that staff were not interpreting, classifying or escalating measures of a baby’s heart rate properly, an issue that was raised by Donna Ockenden in her review of the Shrewsbury scandal. Despite fetal monitoring being highlighted as an area needing attention in 2015 and 2021, the most recent inspection “highlighted that the service continued to lack urgency and pace in implementing actions and recommendations to mitigate these risks, therefore exposing patients to risk of harm”. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 5 April 2022
  4. News Article
    Detectives have begun an investigation into the deaths of two babies at the hospital trust at the centre of the largest maternity scandal in NHS history. The babies died in separate incidents last year at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, both during birth. One of them was a twin. The cases were among 600 examined by West Mercia police alongside an inquiry by Donna Ockenden, a senior midwife and manager, into failings at the trust. Her report revealed last week that 201 babies had died and 94 suffered brain damage as a result of avoidable mistakes. Nine mothers also died because of errors in care. Detectives are working with prosecutors to determine whether charges should be brought over the two deaths last year, after years of warnings that maternity services were in crisis. West Mercia police said they were investigating the trust as an organisation as well as individuals. The trust could face a charge of corporate manslaughter if it is found that the way the hospital organised and managed its services caused a death that amounted to a “gross breach” of its duty of care. If found guilty, the trust would face an unlimited fine. Individuals charged with gross negligence manslaughter could go to jail if convicted. The move by the police comes amid growing fears that the unsafe care identified in the report could be taking place in maternity services in other parts of the country. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 3 April 2022
  5. News Article
    Poor culture and leadership must be addressed if we are to make our maternity services the safest place to give birth. This statement from the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) came as the final report of the largest ever review of NHS maternity services was published. The RCM acknowledged that the pain and suffering of the families had been worsened by having to fight for answers and vowed to work with NHS bodies and other professional organisations to ensure lessons are learned from these tragic failings. Today the RCM has pledged to continue its work to be part of the solution to safety improvements and support its members to do the same not only at Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust, but throughout all maternity services across the UK. Commenting, the Royal College of Midwives’ (RCM) Chief Executive, Gill Walton said: “It is heartbreaking that this report only came about because of the determination of the families. We owe them a debt that I fear can never be repaid. What we can do - all of us who are involved in maternity services – is work together to ensure we listen, and we learn from this and ensure that women and families have trust in their care." “This review must be a turning point for all those working in maternity services. The actions recommended are measured and sensible and reflect much of what the RCM has been calling for. We hope that those in a position to enact them – NHS England and the Department for Health & Social Care – will do so in partnership with organisations like ours and with haste.” "A poor working culture, where staff were afraid to raise concerns, has been cited by the report as a key factor in many of the cases. Earlier this year the RCM called for a seismic NHS cultural shift to improve maternity safety as it published guidance for its members to raise concerns about maternity care which outlined steps staff can take and what to do if they feel they are not being listened to or their concerns are ignored." Read full story Source: Royal College of Midwives, 30 March 2022
  6. News Article
    Sajid Javid has issued an apology for the maternity service failings reported at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust. The health secretary spoke in the Commons on Wednesday after an independent inquiry into the UK’s biggest maternity scandal found that 201 babies and nine mothers could have - or would have - survived if the NHS trust had provided better care. Speaking in the Commons, the health secretary said Donna Ockenden - a maternity expert who led the report - told him about “basic oversights” at “every level of patient care” at the trust. He said the report “has given a voice at last to those families who were ignored and so grievously wronged”. Javid said the report painted a tragic and harrowing picture of repeated failures in care over two decades which led to unimaginable trauma for so many people. Rather than moments of joy and happiness for these families their experience of maternity care was one of tragedy and distress and the effects of these failures were felt across families, communities and generations. The cases in this report are stark and deeply upsetting. Mr Javid offered reassurances that the individuals who are responsible for the “serious and repeated failures” will be held to account. Read full story and Sajid Javid's statement Source: The Independent, 30 March 2022
  7. News Article
    A policy ‘at the heart’ of NHS England’s efforts to improve maternity care is under question after being sharply criticised by an independent inquiry, and is the subject of major tensions within NHSE and midwifery, HSJ understands. The Ockenden report into major care failings at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust included 15 “immediate actions” for all maternity services in England, which government has accepted and said it would begin implementation. However, one of these relates to the “continuity of carer” model, which NHS England has championed since 2017, when it was described as “at the heart of” its national plans for improving maternity care and outcomes. The model intends to give women “dedicated support” from the same midwifery team throughout their pregnancy, with claimed benefits including improved outcomes, with a particular focus on some minority groups. However, Ms Ockenden indicated its implementation in recent years had stretched staffing, and therefore harmed quality and safety overall, and also appeared to question whether the model was evidenced. Some midwifery leaders are advocates for the model, but others have described how it can result in awful working patterns, with concerns it is causing some staff to leave the profession. Royal College of Midwives director for professional midwifery Mary Ross-Davie told HSJ: “With the right resources and the right number of midwives, CoC can have a positive impact on maternity care – but in too many trusts and boards this is simply not the situation. We are really pleased, therefore, to see that the review team has echoed the RCM’s recommendations around the suspension of continuity of carer where too few staff puts safe deployment at risk.” She said the model was “something to which many maternity services aspire, particularly for women who need enhanced monitoring throughout their pregnancy to deliver better outcomes for them and their baby”. Helen Hughes, chief executive of Patient Safety Learning charity, said that although it had heard positive feedback that the model can improve outcomes, there must also be a “robust assessment of the safety impact of implementing such changes and the sources and staffing in place to deliver this”. “Otherwise the core intentions and benefits will be lost,” Ms Hughes said. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 31 March 2022 Further reading Midwifery Continuity of Carer: What does good look like? Midwifery Continuity of Carer: Frontline insights The benefits of Continuity of Carer: a midwife’s personal reflection
  8. News Article
    A shortage of more than 2,000 midwives means women and babies will remain at risk of unsafe care in the NHS despite an inquiry into the biggest maternity scandal in its history, health leaders have warned. A landmark review of Shrewsbury and Telford hospital NHS trust, led by the maternity expert Donna Ockenden, will publish its final findings on Wednesday with significant implications for maternity care across the UK. The inquiry, which has examined more than 1,800 cases over two decades, is expected to conclude that hundreds of babies died or were seriously disabled because of mistakes at the NHS trust, and call for changes. But NHS and midwifery officials said they fear a growing shortage of NHS maternity staff means trusts may be unable to meet new standards set out in the report. “I am deeply worried when senior staff are saying they cannot meet the recommendations in the Ockenden review which are vital to ensuring women and babies get the safest possible maternity care,” said Gill Walton, chief executive of the Royal College of Midwives (RCM). The number of midwives has fallen to 26,901, according to NHS England figures published last month, from 27,272 a year ago. The RCM says the fall in numbers adds to an existing shortage of more than 2,000 staff. Experts said the shortage was caused by the NHS struggling to attract new midwives while losing existing staff, who felt overworked and fed up at being spread too thinly across maternity wards. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 29 March 2022
  9. News Article
    A damning report into hundreds of baby deaths has condemned the trust at the centre of the biggest maternity scandal in the history of the NHS for blaming mothers while repeatedly ignoring its own catastrophic blunders for decades. The independent inquiry into maternity practices at Shrewsbury and Telford hospital NHS trust uncovered hundreds of cases in which health officials failed to undertake serious incident investigations, while deaths were dismissed or not investigated appropriately. Instead, grieving families were denied access to reviews of their care and mothers were blamed when their babies died or suffered horrific injuries. A combination of an obsession with natural births over caesarean sections coupled with a shocking lack of staff, training and oversight of maternity wards resulted in a toxic culture in which mothers and babies died needlessly for 20 years while “repeated failures” were ignored again and again. Tragically, it meant some babies were stillborn, dying shortly after birth or being left severely brain damaged, while others suffered horrendous skull fractures or avoidable broken bones. Some babies developed cerebral palsy after traumatic forceps deliveries, while others were starved of oxygen and experienced life-changing brain injuries. The report, led by the maternity expert Donna Ockenden, examined cases involving 1,486 families between 2000 and 2019, and reviewed 1,592 clinical incidents. “Throughout our final report we have highlighted how failures in care were repeated from one incident to the next,” she said. “For example, ineffective monitoring of foetal growth and a culture of reluctance to perform caesarean sections resulted in many babies dying during birth or shortly after their birth. “In many cases, mother and babies were left with lifelong conditions as a result of their care and treatment. The reasons for these failures are clear. There were not enough staff, there was a lack of ongoing training, there was a lack of effective investigation and governance at the trust and a culture of not listening to the families involved. “There was a tendency of the trust to blame mothers for their poor outcomes, in some cases even for their own deaths. What is astounding is that for more than two decades these issues have not been challenged internally and the trust was not held to account by external bodies. “This highlights that systemic change is needed locally, and nationally, to ensure that care provided to families is always professional and compassionate, and that teams from ward to board are aware of and accountable for the values and standards that they should be upholding. Going forward, there can be no excuses.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 30 March 2022
  10. News Article
    A whistleblower who worked at a hospital trust where hundreds of babies died or were left brain-damaged says there was "a climate of fear" among staff who tried to report concerns. Bernie Bentick was a consultant obstetrician at the Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust for almost 30 years. "In Shrewsbury and Telford there was a climate of fear where staff felt unable to speak up because of risk of victimisation," Mr Bentick said. "Clearly, when a baby or a mother dies, it's extremely traumatic for everybody concerned. "Sadly, the mechanisms for trying to prevent recurrence weren't sufficient for a number of factors. "Resources and the institutionalised bullying and blame culture was a large part of that." More than 1,800 cases of potentially avoidable harm have been reviewed by the inquiry. Most occurred between 2000 and 2019. Mr Bentick worked at the Trust until 2020. He said from 2009 onwards, he was raising concerns with managers. "I believe there were significant issues which promoted risk because of principally understaffing and the culture," he said. He also accuses hospital bosses of prioritising activity - the number of patients seen and procedures performed - over patient safety. "I believe that the senior management were mostly concerned with activity rather than safety - and until safety is on a par with clinical activity, I don’t see how the situation is going to be resolved," he said. Read full story Source: Sky News, 27 March 2022
  11. News Article
    The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) has called for the immediate suspension of charging for NHS maternity care for migrant women because members say this government policy is harming the health of pregnant women and their babies. It is the first time the health professionals’ body has issued a position statement on this issue. The charity Maternity Action and the Royal College of Midwives have long expressed concern about the impact of NHS charging on this group of women. Charging forms a key plank of the Home Office’s hostile environment for migrants. The government says the charging policy is in place to deter health tourism but medics treating migrant pregnant women say there is little evidence that previously free NHS maternity care for all attracted health tourists. According to the 2019 MBRRACE-UK confidential inquiry into maternal deaths, three women were found to have died between 2015 and 2017 who may have been reluctant to access maternity care due to fears about charging and impact on their immigration status. Dr Brenda Kelly, an NHS consultant obstetrician working in Oxford, treats many pregnant migrant women. She is calling for the barriers to them accessing maternity care to be removed urgently. She described the case of one migrant woman who arrived in A&E shortly before delivering a stillborn baby. The woman had been fearful of coming forward for antenatal care although she was suffering from multiple, pregnancy-related health problems. “I hope I never have to hear cries like that woman’s cries ever again,” said Kelly. “The way to safeguard these women is to build up trust. If they are landed with a bill of several thousand pounds they will disengage. They are not health tourists, they are desperate. The commitment to maternal health equity means ending charges for maternity care. The time for action is now.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 27 March 2022
  12. News Article
    An investigation has been launched after a woman died during childbirth at a hospital's maternity unit. It was the third death of a mother in just over three years at Basildon University Hospital in Essex, in addition to a newborn baby's death. The trust that runs the hospital said it could not comment on the case while it was under investigation. Basildon University Hospital is part of Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust, which also runs Southend and Broomfield hospitals. The latest fatality follows the death of 36-year-old Gabriela Pintilie in February 2019. Ms Pintilie died after losing six litres of blood giving birth to her second child at the unit. In separate incidents, a mother died and another woman had a stillborn baby at the unit in March 2019, while the trust was being inspected by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) following Ms Pintilie's death. The unit at Basildon had its rating upgraded from "inadequate" to "requires improvement" in December by the CQC. The hospital also apologised for the death of newborn Frederick Terry after he suffered a brain haemorrhage during a failed forceps delivery in November 2019. Read full story Source: BBC News, 27 March 2022
  13. News Article
    When Debbie Greenaway was told by doctors that she should try to deliver her twin babies naturally, she was nervous. But the doctor was adamant, she recalls. “He said: ‘We’ve got the lowest caesarean rates in the country and we are proud of it and we plan to keep it that way'." For Greenaway, labour was seemingly endless. She was given repeated doses of syntocinon, a drug used to bring on contractions. By the second day, the midwife was worried for one of the babies, whom the couple had named John. “She was getting really concerned that they couldn’t find John’s heartbeat.” Her husband remembers “the midwife shaking her head”. “She said a number of times that we should be having a caesarean.” By the time doctors finally decided to perform an emergency C-section, it was too late. Starved of oxygen, baby John had suffered a catastrophic brain injury. When he was delivered at 3am, he had no pulse. Efforts to resuscitate him failed. Their son’s death was part of what is now recognised as the largest maternity scandal in NHS history. The five-year investigation will reveal that the experiences of 1,500 families at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust between 2000 and 2019 were examined. At least 12 mothers died while giving birth, and some families lost more than one child in separate incidents, the report is expected to show. The expert midwife Donna Ockenden and a team of more than 90 midwives and doctors will deliver a damning verdict on the Shrewsbury trust, its culture and leadership — and failure to learn from mistakes or listen to families. At its heart is how a toxic obsession with “normal birth” — fuelled by targets and pressure from the NHS to reduce caesarean rates — became so pervasive that life-or-death decisions on the maternity ward became dangerously distorted for nearly two decades. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 26 March 2022
  14. News Article
    Women and NHS staff have warned that mothers are being “forgotten” after giving birth, with a staff crisis only making matters worse. Kate, a 32-year-old from Leeds, says she has been left in “excruciating” pain for nine years after horrifying postnatal care. Other women have told The Independent stories of care ranging from “disjointed” to “disastrous”. It comes as midwives warn there are “horrendous” shortages in community services, which have prevented women from accessing adequate antenatal and postnatal care. Mary Ross-Davie, the Royal College of Midwives’ director for professional midwifery, said that with each Covid wave midwifery staffing has been hit worse than the last. To provide safe care during labour, antenatal and postnatal care, teams are sent into wards putting “huge pressure on care”. She said this could mean clinicians end up “missing things”, such as women struggling emotionally after birth. The warnings over poor antenatal and postnatal care come after experts at the University of Oxford said in November there were “stark” gaps in postnatal care, despite the highest number of deaths being recorded in the postnatal period. Dr Sunita Sharma, lead consultant for postnatal care at Chelsea and Westminster Trust, said that when NHS maternity inpatient staffing overall is in crisis “often the first place staff are moved from is the postnatal ward, which is clinically very appropriate, but it can come at a cost of putting more pressure on postnatal care for other mothers”. Dr Sharma said postnatal teams were doing their best to improve services but need national drivers and funding to sustain improvement. Read full story Source: The Independent, 16 March 2022
  15. News Article
    A midwife found guilty of misconduct over the death of a baby six years ago is to be struck off. Claire Roberts was investigated by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) for failures in the care she gave to Pippa Griffiths - who died a day after being born at home in Myddle, Shropshire. An independent disciplinary panel described the midwife as "a danger to patients and colleagues". Ms Roberts and fellow midwife Joanna Young failed to realise the "urgency" of medical attention needed, following the birth, the panel said. They had failed to carry out a triage assessment, after Pippa's mother called staff for help because she was worried about her daughter's condition. The panel concluded Ms Roberts's fitness to practise was impaired. Inaccurate record-keeping by Ms Roberts represented "serious dishonesty", panel chair David Evans said, adding she had carried it out "in order to protect herself from disciplinary action". Her failures had represented a "significant departure from standards expected by a registered midwife," he added. Her colleague Ms Young, whose case was also heard by the panel, faced strong criticism on Wednesday, but was told she would face no sanction after the hearing concluded she had shown remorse and undergone extra training since 2016. Kayleigh Griffiths said she and her husband welcomed the findings and sanctions. "We're really relieved that one of the midwives has been struck off and actually we're also relieved to find that the other midwife has learnt and feels significant remorse for the event that took place," she said. "We realise people do make mistakes and I think how you deal with those mistakes is really important. "All we do ask is that learning was made from those and I think in one of the instances it did occur and in the other it didn't - so I think the right outcome has been found." Read full story Source: BBC News, 10 March 2022
  16. News Article
    The publication of a report into failures of maternity care at an NHS trust has been delayed again. Senior midwife Donna Ockenden has been investigating hundreds of cases in which mothers and babies may have been harmed at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SaTh). Her report had been due to be published on 22 March after being postponed from December. In a letter to families, Ms Ockenden said that date "can no longer happen". She added it was down to "parliamentary processes" which have to happen before the final report can be published. A written statement to Parliament on Tuesday by patient safety minister Maria Caulfield said the NHS had been working to get indemnity cover. She said it would be to cover any potential legal action following the publication of the report and had been agreed in principle by the Treasury. Ms Ockenden's team has been examining 1,862 cases and it is thought to be the largest ever review of maternity care in the NHS. Her interim report published in December 2020 found some mothers were blamed for their babies' deaths. In her letter about the delay, Ms Ockenden said she and her team were "also very disappointed in the delay" and would be working to agree a new publication date. Read full story Source: BBC News, 9 March 2022
  17. News Article
    Midwife-supported homebirths will not be re-introduced in Guernsey after their suspension due to coronavirus. The committee for health and social care explained it is difficult for a small team to accommodate the births. It said that if the service was reinstated, it may impact deliveries on Loveridge Ward in Princess Elizabeth Hospital. A spokesperson said they were "very sorry" to parents who wanted to give birth at home. The committee said homebirths rely on a demanding on-call commitment from community midwives on top of their contracted hours. To facilitate a birth at home, two of the five midwives are required to be on-call for 24 hours a day, for up to five weeks at a time. Deputy Tina Bury, vice president of the committee for health and social care, said: "The midwifery team is small and it was simply not sustainable or safe in the long-term to provide the kind of on-call cover needed to support homebirths. Read full story Source: BBC News, 5 March 2022
  18. News Article
    Tens of thousands of new mothers have been left feeling “hopeless” and “isolated” during the pandemic, with the NHS seeing record numbers of referrals to mental health services. Requests for help from new, expectant and bereaved mothers jumped by 40% in 2021 compared with 2019, analysis by The Independent has revealed. NHS data shows mental health referrals hit an all-time high of 23,673 in November last year, with average monthly referrals for the whole of 2021 running 21% higher than the year before, jumping from 17,226 to 21,990. Among those affected when support systems were “suddenly” removed in March 2020 was Leanne, a woman who had her second child just before the pandemic and experienced a mental health crisis. She told The Independent how she had struggled following the first lockdown. “I just thought, Oh God, my recovery is going to stop, how am I going to get better now because I’ve got no support – I’m on my own with it,” she said. “I was [also] anticipating the lockdown … in addition to the nursery closing, and I was getting quite anxious about that, and feeling quite hopeless. The pressure piled on me was enormous, and I had no one who could see me or support me." Dr Rosena Allin-Khan MP, the shadow minister for mental health, said the figures uncovered by The Independent were “extremely concerning” and that pregnant women had been “forgotten about through the pandemic”. The Royal College of Psychiatrists’ lead for perinatal mental health services, Dr Joanne Black, said the NHS pandemic recovery plan had lost sight of women in pregnancy and children under two years old, who have been “disproportionately affected”. Read full story Source: The Independent, 28 February 2022
  19. News Article
    Pregnancy-related deaths among US mothers climbed higher in the pandemic’s first year, continuing a decades-long trend that disproportionately affects Black people, according to a new government report. Overall in 2020, there were almost 24 deaths per 100,000 births, or 861 deaths total, numbers that reflect mothers dying during pregnancy, childbirth or the year after. The rate was 20 per 100,000 in 2019. Among Black people, there were 55 maternal deaths per 100,000 births, almost triple the rate for white people. The report from the National Center for Health Statistics does not include reasons for the trend and researchers said they have not fully examined how Covid-19, which increases risks for severe illness in pregnancy, might have contributed. The coronavirus could have had an indirect effect. Many people put off medical care early in the pandemic for fear of catching the virus, and virus surges strained the healthcare system, which could have had an impact on pregnancy-related deaths, said Eugene Declercq, a professor and maternal death researcher at Boston University School of Public Health. He called the high rates “terrible news” and noted that the US has continually fared worse in maternal mortality than many other developed countries. Reasons for those disparities are not included in the data, but experts have blamed many factors including differences in rates of underlying health conditions, poor access to quality healthcare and structural racism. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 23 February 2022
  20. News Article
    Next month, a report will be published into one of the biggest scandals in the history of the NHS, the failures of maternity care at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust. The BBC's Michael Buchanan who helped uncover the problems examines why so many failures were allowed to happen for so long. Kayleigh Griffiths' baby, Pippa, died at 31 hours old. The cause of death, the couple were later told, was an infection - Group B Strep. The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust told the family they would carry out an investigation. But after several weeks of silence, Kayleigh contacted the trust to be told it was an internal investigation and the couple's input wouldn't be required. Kayleigh, an NHS auditor at a different trust, feared the truth was being hidden from her. That's when she decided to send the email to Rhiannon Davies, whose baby, Kate, also died at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust As the bond between the mothers deepened, their conversations morphed into something else. Armed with little more than a gnawing suspicion, they started to scour the internet, coroner's records and death notices to see if any other families had received poor maternity care at the Shropshire trust. They collated 23 cases dating back to 2000 - including stillbirths, neonatal deaths, maternal deaths and babies born with brain injuries. Appalled by what they had found, they wrote to the then health secretary Jeremy Hunt in December 2016, asking him to order an investigation. He agreed and in May 2017, senior midwife Donna Ockenden was appointed to lead the review. One of the themes the inquiry has already noted, in an interim report published in December 2020, is that in many cases the trust failed to investigate after something went wrong, or simply carried out its own inquiry. Panorama has discovered the trust even developed its own investigation system, what they called a High Risk Case Review. It was outside any national framework that has been used to help learn lessons from incidents and doesn't appear to be a system that's used in any other NHS organisation. Another consequence of the unorthodox system was that fewer incidents were reported to NHS regulators, limiting the opportunity to learn lessons. One of the earliest cases on the original list of 23 compiled by the two couples was the death of Kathryn Leigh in 2000. Panorama has investigated the case and discovered that a theme identified almost two decades ago was to come up repeatedly in subsequent incidents. The publication of the final report by Donna Ockenden next month will be a watershed moment in the history of the NHS - the revelation of multiple instances of maternity failures in a rural corner of England. Pippa Griffiths and Kate Stanton-Davies lived fewer than 40 hours between them, but their legacy, in terms of improved maternity care, could last decades. Read full story Source: BBC News, 23 February 2022 Source:
  21. News Article
    A former consultant gynaecologist has told how he raised concerns over bullying, unsafe practices and a "dysfunctional culture" ahead of a report into a maternity scandal. Bernie Bentick, who worked at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals Trust (Sath) for almost 30 years, has spoken publicly about maternity care at the trust for the first time. Sath is at the centre of the largest inquiry in the history of the NHS into maternity care, which is expected to report next month. An official investigation is examining the care that 1,862 families received. Mr Bentick says he told senior management several times about a deteriorating culture at Sath. “I was increasingly concerned about the level of bullying, of dysfunctional culture, of the imposition of changes in clinical practice that many clinicians felt was unsafe," Mr Bentick told BBC's Panorama. "If the resources had been made available to employ adequate numbers, to provide safe levels of care in accordance with national guidelines, then the situation may have been profoundly different.” Mr Bentick went on to say that though some “cursory” investigations were launched into his complaints, he believed the trust responded in a way that tried to “preserve the reputation of the organisation.” Read full story Source: Shropshire Star, 23 February 2022
  22. News Article
    A taskforce has been set up to tackle disparities in maternity care experienced by women belonging to ethnic minorities and those living in deprived areas. Black women are 40% more likely to miscarry than white, studies suggest. Maternal death rates are also higher among black and Asian women. Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists head Dr Edward Morris told BBC News implicit racial bias was affecting some women's care. Patient Safety and Primary Care Minister Maria Caulfield said: "For too long disparities have persisted which mean women living in deprived areas or from ethnic minority backgrounds are less likely to get the care they need and, worse, lose their child. "We must do better to understand and address the causes of this. "The Maternity Disparities Taskforce will help level-up maternity care across the country, bringing together a wide range of experts to deliver real and ambitious change so we can improve care for all women - and I will be monitoring progress closely." Chief midwifery officer Prof Jacqueline Dunkley-Bent, who will co-chair the taskforce, said: "The NHS's ambition is to be the safest place in the world to be pregnant, give birth and transition into parenthood - all women who use our maternity services should receive the best care possible." The taskforce will meet every two months and focus on: improving personalised care and support plans addressing how wider societal issues affect maternal health improving education and awareness of health when trying to conceive, such as taking supplements and maintaining a healthy weight increasing access to maternity care for all women and developing targeted support for those from the most vulnerable groups empowering women to make evidence-based decisions about their care. Read full story Source: BBC News, 23 February 2022 Source: BBC News,
  23. News Article
    Seventy families have come forward to be a part of an independent review into maternity services at Nottingham University Hospitals Trust (NUH). The aim of the review is to "drive rapid improvements to maternity services". It comes after an investigation found 46 babies suffered brain damage and 19 were stillborn between 2010 and 2020. The Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and NHS England are jointly leading the review of maternity incidents, complaints and concerns at Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH). Cathy Purt, programme director of the review, said during a Nottingham City Council Health Scrutiny Committee meeting on Thursday: "We have had 70 families come forward 19 families have had their first interview with us." "We have secured via the CCG specialist psychological support for the rest of the families so they will now be able to come forward and have their interviews as well. "40 staff have come forward so far and more are coming as we go." The review will cover information dating back to 2006, and is expected to be completed by November 30 2022. Read full story Source: BBC News, 18 February 2022
  24. News Article
    America is facing an intensified push to pass stalled federal legislation to address the US’s alarming maternal mortality rates and glaring racial disparities which have led to especially soaring death rates among Black women giving birth. Maternal mortality rates in the US far outpace rates in other industrialised nations, with rates more than double those of countries such as France, Canada, the UK, Australia, Germany. Moms in the US are dying at the highest rates in the developed world. Overall maternal mortality rates in the US spiked during the pandemic. Maternal deaths in the US rose 40% from 861 in 2020 to 1,205 in 2021, a rate of 32.9 deaths per 100,000 live births. For Black women, these maternal mortality rates were significantly higher, at 69.9 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2021. These racial disparities in maternal health outcomes have persisted and worsened for years as the number of women who die giving birth in the US has more than doubled in the last two decades. The CDC noted in a review of maternal mortalities in the US from 2017 to 2019, that 84% of the recorded maternal deaths were preventable. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 23 July 2023
  25. News Article
    Women who lose babies during pregnancy will be able to get a certificate as an official recognition of their loss as well as better collection and storage of remains under new government plans. The government will make sure the certificate is available to anyone who requests one after experiencing any loss pre-24 weeks’ gestation. The NHS will develop and deliver a sensitive receptacle to collect baby loss remains when a person miscarries. A&Es will also have to ensure that cold storage facilities are available to receive and store remains or pregnancy tissue 24/7 so that women don’t have to resort to storing them in their home refrigerators. The new recommendations are part of the government’s response to the independent Pregnancy Loss Review. Read full story Source: The Independent, 23 July 2023
×
×
  • Create New...