Nottingham hospitals maternity services ‘inadequate’

The maternity units at Nottingham’s two main hospitals have been rated inadequate by inspectors.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) found “several serious concerns”, including staffing, poor leadership and a culture that did not learn lessons.

It comes after Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust was criticised for

errors that led to the death of Wynter Andrews, minutes after she was born.

The trust said it had made changes, including hiring extra midwives.

In October Nottinghamshire assistant coroner Laurinda Bower said Wynter’s death was “a clear and obvious case of neglect”.

She also revealed a letter from midwives at the unit to bosses at the trust in 2018 outlining concerns over staffing levels as “the cause of a potential disaster”.

The CQC carried out the unannounced inspection in November at the Nottingham City Hospital and Queen’s Medical Centre.

It found the service did not always have “enough midwifery staff with the right qualifications, skills, training and experience to keep women safe from avoidable harm and to provide the right care and treatment”.

In addition, there was “limited evidence of managers monitoring the effectiveness of care and treatment and driving improvement.

“Managers did not ensure all staff were competent for their role,” inspectors said.

Staff did not always use a nationally recognised tool to identify women at risk of deterioration and record keeping was not joined up, the report found.

The CQC rated the safety, effectiveness and leadership of maternity care as inadequate and gave the trust three months to make meaningful improvements.

Tracy Taylor, chief executive at the trust, said: “We want to provide the best maternity services for local people, and the priority of our maternity team is to provide safe care to the families they come into contact with every day but we know we haven’t always got this right, and we are very sorry.

“We accept the report from the CQC and have already made some immediate changes and will continue to make further improvements.”

Changes include hiring extra midwifery staff, additional training and management support and IT improvements.

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