The response of hospital bosses to an inspection report that downgraded maternity services has left a health campaigner feeling “astonished and dismayed,” as reported by the Express & Star. “The regulatory body issued a cautionary notice to the University Hospitals of North Midlands (UHNM) NHS Trust, responsible for Royal Stoke, demanding immediate improvements.
At the UHNM board meeting held last month, attendees were apprised of ongoing actions, alongside the recognition of positive initiatives. Additionally, services were being assessed against updated standards in comparison to the previous criteria. During their July meeting, Ian Syme from North Staffordshire Healthwatch, a consistent attendee of board meetings with hospital administrators, expressed worries about their acknowledgment of mothers and babies receiving “suboptimal care” and further queried the board’s response.
He said: “The first board meeting I attended at this organisation was August 1997 – 26 years ago. I always thought even back in 1997 that an NHS Trust Board’s priority was and is the provision of safe services to the community and patients it serves – has organisation reputation now superseded that priority? Maternity services, rightly so, are under the microscope given significant safety failings in way too many maternity units nationally. I was astonished and dismayed at the dialogue and debate at the July board (meeting) re the CQC Maternity report. As an outsider looking in it appeared to me that the board was searching for the excusable and prioritising the limiting of damage to organisation reputation.”
Tracy Bullock, who is the chief executive, responded with the following statement: “The CQC report has not made any statements or claims any women have come to harm. What I would say is we do recognise that sometimes women come to harm and we also have patients who are unhappy about the care they receive. We investigate all of these incidents and complaints. Where organisations are rated good or outstanding we knock on the door and ask what they are doing to see if there is anything we can learn from that. Yes some women are coming to harm but that happens everywhere. Given the number of births we have we are by no means out of kilter and these is not an issue the CQC found.”
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