The Care Quality Commission’s ‘The state of health care and adult social care in England 2021/22’ report was published today (Friday 21 October 2022).
It shared the CQC’s ratings as of 31 July 2022, which show that the quality of maternity services is getting worse, with six per cent of NHS services (nine out of 139) now rated as inadequate, and 32% (45 services) rated as requires improvement. This means that the care in almost two out of every five maternity units is not good enough.
Commenting on the report, Sara Ledger, Head of Research and Development at Baby Lifeline, said:
“It’s disappointing to see the Care Quality Commission’s reported drop in quality of maternity units, especially in light of the many reports and recommendations published over the years, all with the aim of improving maternity care across the country.
“’The investigation into maternity and neonatal services in University Hospitals Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust, led by Dr Bill Kirkup, was published seven years ago, in 2015; Donna Ockenden’s hard-hitting review of maternity services at Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust was published in March this year and called for immediate and essential actions; and the Independent Investigation into East Kent Maternity Services, also led by Kirkup, was published on Wednesday.
“These independent investigations keep coming – Ockenden’s independent review of Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust is currently underway – and they all identify similar problems within maternity services that have led to avoidable harm and death.
“There has been a great deal of work done at a national level, all of which has highlighted the existence of the same problems within many other maternity services – these “scandal-hit” Trusts are not one-offs.
“There has been a long-term failure to invest in the maternity workforce, and in ongoing training. This is compounded by a lack of workforce planning and poor workplace cultures. Meanwhile, women, birthing people and families are not being listened to.
“Baby Lifeline’s own research – Mind the Gap – showed that there are significant gaps in training provided to the frontline which directly relates to the causes of avoidable harm. For example, our most recent report, published in November 2021, found that fewer than a third of organisations provided training in conducting serious incidents investigations to relevant staff – this is despite a well-documented need for improvements nationally to be able to prevent future harm.
“There is some evidence that things could be moving in the right direction. Last week’s MBRRACE Perinatal Mortality Surveillance Report revealed that the overall number of stillbirths across the UK fell between 2013 and 2020. However, progress is too slow, and there is still a great deal of work to be done to achieve the National Ambition of reducing all perinatal deaths by 50% by 2025.
“We surely now have enough stringent recommendations, and sufficient clarity around immediate and essential actions, to be able to make well-informed improvements to maternity services across the UK. At Baby Lifeline, we believe it’s time to start putting these lessons into practice and supporting professionals to do so. We’ve launched our ‘Enough is enough’ campaign through which we’re calling for everyone who cares about maternity services to join us in pledging to take individual and collective action.
“We believe we need to help bring families, midwives, obstetricians, neonatologists, obstetric anaesthetists, and all who care about safety in our maternity services, together, and to do what we can to provoke a sense positivity and determination around moving things forward.”