Health watchdog warns patients still being jeopardised by troubled maternity wards

The NHS watchdog has warned that mothers and babies are at risk of injury and death because too many maternity wards have not improved in their care, despite a string of childbirth scandals.

In a highly critical report published recently, the Care Quality Commission expressed serious concern that lessons are not being learned and that many incidents involving safety of patients are still not being recorded.

The report went on to say that some hospitals have been “too slow” to take the steps needed to make labour and birth safer, despite multiple inquiries, recommendations and reports.

The CQC also found other persistent failures in maternity care, including difficulties and tension between obstetricians and midwives, and poor oversight of patient risks during an in-depth inspection of maternity care at nine hospitals in England.

Ted Baker, the CQC’s chief inspector of hospitals, said of the report “We know that many maternity services are providing good care, but we remain concerned that there has not been enough learning from good and outstanding services.”

However, he added “But we cannot ignore the fact that the quality of staff training; poor working relationships between obstetric and midwifery teams, and hospital and community-based midwifery teams; a lack of robust risk assessment; and a failure to engage with and listen to the needs of local women all continue to affect the safety of some hospital maternity services today.”

The report says that despite an increased focus in recent years on maternity care, “the pace of progress has been too slow and action to ensure all women have access to safe, effective and personalised maternity care has not been sufficiently prioritised to mitigate risk and help prevent future tragedies from occurring.”

Chadwick Lawrence’s team of medical negligence lawyers have years of experience in high value and complex medical negligence compensation claims and have an excellent record.  The team is led by Tony May, a specialist cerebral palsy and birth injury solicitor, who has over 20 years experience in handling cases in which babies have been brain damaged or sustained other injuries as a result of medical negligence.  He and his team continue to represent many cerebral palsy children and young adults in medical negligence claims.  Tony also acts as a Court of Protection Deputy for many of the cerebral palsy and brain damaged clients that he has represented, so we can continue to support you after your case is settled.  Tony can be contacted by email on tonymay@chadlaw.co.uk.  Alternatively, please call and speak to any of Chadwick Lawrence’s specialist medical negligence Legal Aid and no win, no fee solicitors for free legal advice on Freephone 0800 304 7382