'At Risk of Harm': UK Watchdog Reveals Repeated Maternity Care Failings at Sheffield NHS Trust

Late last week, the Metropolitan Police confirmed that they are conducting a "very much active" investigation into maternity care-related blunders at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust that led to the deaths of over 200 babies.

Repeated maternity care failings have been uncovered in Yorkshire's Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), an independent UK regulator of health and social care.

In a report released earlier this week, the watchdog voiced alarm over the safety of mothers and babies in one of the largest NHS trusts in England, adding that the Yorkshire trust had failed to make the required improvements to services despite receiving previous warnings from the CQC.

The regulator made unannounced visits last autumn to Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust after serious concerns were raised about the quality and safety of services.

According to the CQC report, its 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".

Referring to the medical staff at the Sheffield trust, the report noted that 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 added that CQC inspectors "were informed by staff that there were often difficulties requesting additional assistance when women's health was deteriorating".

"Staff told us [the inspectors] that there were occasions when they would 'bleep' for medical assistance on more than one occasion before assistance arriving. We [the inspectors] were also told on multiple occasions that there were instances where an emergency call buzzer would be pulled after receiving no response to multiple bleep calls", the document noted.

The Sheffield trust's chief executive, Kirsten Major, said that she was "devastated" by the CQC's findings, and took them "extremely seriously". She argued that the trust had "already taken action" to improve its work, "including recruiting over 500 new nurses who are now working on the wards, and there have been changes to the trust's maternity services including investing in more midwives".

Biggest Maternity Scandal in UK Health Service History

The CQC report comes just days after the publication of a 48-page independent inquiry into the biggest maternity scandal in the history of the UK's health service, concerning the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust.

The so­-called Oskenden review found that around 201 babies and nine mothers might have survived if the trust had provided better care.

Both Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Health Secretary Sajid Javid issued apologies to those who suffered "unimaginable trauma" and vowed changes to ensure that failures of care and compassion set out in the report would have no place in the NHS.

"Every woman giving birth has the right to a safe birth and my heart therefore goes out to the families for the distress and suffering they have endured", Boris Johnson told the House of Commons, while Javid added that the changes that the report said were needed "at both a local and national level" would be implemented.

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