Are mothers being put at risk by a sharp jump in the number of mistakes on NHS maternity wards?

Mistakes on maternity wards put mothers at risk
Article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"The patient safety watchdog was notified of 70,108 "incidents" on neonatal units in 2007, double the 35,428 reported in 2005.

More mothers are being abused by ward staff, and there are more mistakes with medication and equipment, the figures obtained by the Liberal Democrats show.

The number of accidents suffered by pregnant women on wards also rose, from 1,584 to 1,060.

Overall, more than one in 10 mothers was a victim of a potentially serious incident while in hospital last year, either before or shortly after the birth of their child."

NHS foundation trust has backed down over plans to close a midwife-led maternity unit

Protests force U-turn on maternity unit closure - Guardian

Extract:

"As revealed in the Guardian, Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Trust had said it would have to shut the rural Darley Dale unit in Matlock, north Derbyshire, because, with just 120 babies born there each year, it was losing £312,000 annually.

But the decision meant heavily pregnant women would have to travel for up to an hour along country roads to give birth. The closure also flew in the face of plans announced by the health secretary, Patricia Hewitt, to allow every woman the choice of a home, hospital or midwife-led birth by 2009.

The same recommendations were made by the maternity tsar Dr Sheila Shribman, and are set to be made by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (Nice).

The plan to permanently close the unit - which has been temporarily closed since the autumn - prompted 5,500 local people and the commissioning primary care trust to protest when it was announced as non-negotiable in a consultation document on revamping maternity services.

Today the trust bowed to this pressure - and to the threat, by the Maintain Our Maternity Services (Moms) campaign group, to seek a judicial review over the handling of the consultation."


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Award-winning maternity unit will close despite pledge

Trust to shut award-winning maternity unit despite pledge - Guardian

Extract:

"An NHS foundation trust is planning to close an award-winning midwife-led maternity unit despite the government last week promising every woman the option of such a delivery.

Heavily pregnant women in north Derbyshire will have to travel up to 21 miles on country roads because of plans to close the Darley Dale unit and cut community midwife numbers from 50 to 33.

Last week, after the health secretary said every mother would have the choice of home, hospital or midwife-led birth by 2009, the Guardian revealed that six out of nine English regions do not employ enough midwives to meet the most basic standards of care. The east Midlands already has the second-worst provision of midwives in the country, according to Guardian figures.

Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Trust says each birth at the eight-bed unit costs £3,217 compared with the £1,000 allocated by the government, meaning it loses £312,000 each year. The inefficiency comes because only 120 babies are born at the unit annually compared with 2,700 at the hospital, yet it has to be staffed by two midwives around the clock."

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(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

"Patricia Hewitt set up an independent inquiry yesterday into plans to axe NHS maternity units in NW England.

Hewitt hands over NHS decision - Guardian article.

Extract:

"Patricia Hewitt, the health secretary, set up an independent inquiry yesterday into plans to axe NHS maternity units in north-west England that provoked a mutiny by her cabinet colleague Hazel Blears.

Ms Blears, the Labour party chair and a candidate to become deputy leader, is campaigning against a decision by regional health chiefs to close a maternity unit in her Salford constituency. At least 13 members of the government who support the principle of reorganising NHS services oppose loss of facilities in their own back yards.

Ms Hewitt can approve or reject NHS reorganisations and usually takes decisions off her own bat. But she would have provoked outrage among NHS managers in the north-west if she had reprieved maternity units in Salford and Bury, where Ivan Lewis, a junior health minister, is campaigning against closure."