The NHS is on the brink of a new maternity scandal due to staff shortages, a lack of adequate training, and toxic workplace cultures, midwives and experts have warned. Last week, another NHS trust’s maternity services were rated “inadequate” by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) after it uncovered evidence of racism towards staff from their own colleagues and dangerously low staffing levels. Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust was accused of putting patient safety at risk.
The inspection was prompted by concerns raised by whistleblowers. Staff at the trust’s two hospitals – Bedford and Luton & Dunstable – were not always completing daily safety checks to ensure equipment was ready in the event of an emergency, not completing mandatory training designed to keep people safe, and were too slow to conduct investigations into poor care, the CQC found. The trust has set up training for staff on “cultural competency, unconscious bias and anti-racism practices” as a result.
It is a depressingly familiar story. Two years ago this weekend, the CQC announced the launch of a new maternity inspection programme, aiming to improve maternity services at local and national levels. Maternity scandals haunt the areas of Nottingham, East Kent and Shrewsbury after awful care that led to the avoidable deaths of mothers and babies was exposed.
By the end of last year, the CQC said that maternity units currently have the poorest safety ratings of any hospital service it inspec.