Experts urge key changes at maternity hospital

Leading specialists from Southampton had already launched an external review of women’s services at the Mid Yorkshire NHS trust when a cluster of seven “serious untoward incidents” occurred in the maternity unit at Dewsbury’s hospital between November and February.

Trust chiefs have not published the review’s recommendations but they are believed to include better monitoring of babies’ heart traces during labour, action to ensure staff follow guidelines and improvements in patient record-keeping.

The findings are similar to criticisms made in the wake of several other incidents involving maternity care at the trust, prompting calls last night for action.

John Steel, whose son Joseph was stillborn at Pontefract in October 2007 following critical lapses in reading his heart trace, said he was angry that the failings had continued.

“They told us in 2007 after Joseph died that lessons needed to be learned. We’re now in 2011 and they blatantly haven’t,” he said.

“They just haven’t done anything to amend systems and practices.”

Dewsbury MP Simon Reevell called for the report to be made public. He said: “It should be published in full as soon as possible so that all those concerned can consider what it says.”

The Care Quality Commission, which has powers to intervene at hospitals, said it was examining the findings.

“We will consider if we need to carry out regulatory action having studied the report in detail,” said a spokesman.

The review is believed to have focused on staffing and bed numbers, service quality, staff training and leadership.

It was ordered last year after a number of unspecified serious incidents in maternity, obstetrics and gynaecology services across the trust, in particular out of hours and at weekends. Seven serious incidents came over the winter linked to labour or deaths of babies at Dewsbury. There are typically only around two dozen linked to maternity services each year across Yorkshire.

In June, an inquest was told delays in delivering baby Oliver Schofield were largely to blame for his death after his mother spent 61 hours in labour at Dewsbury’s hospital in July last year, partly due to a shortage of beds and midwives.

Days later a General Medical Council panel criticised “organisational failures” at Pontefract’s infirmary prior to the stillbirth of Joseph Steel and warned opportunities to learn from the tragedy could have been lost.

The concerns come amid mounting problems for the trust over bed shortages at the new £260m Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield, worsening finances and difficulties meeting waiting targets.

It is also carrying out a review of its services which is likely to prove highly-controversial.

Susanna Cafferty, regional officer for the Royal College of Midwives, said it welcomed the review’s conclusions that there was “a safe standard of care at the trust for mothers and babies”.

Mid Yorkshire’s chief nurse Tracey McErlain Burns said: “We seek to be a learning organisation and have always reported and responsibly reviewed services.

“We have developed a service improvement programme which, once approved, will be monitored regularly with reports.”

Immediate action was always taken following reviews of adverse incidents and work was under way to re-examine training in areas including interpretation of heart traces, she added.