Maternity services across England are in such dire straits that subpar care and harm to women during childbirth are at risk of becoming “normalised,” according to the NHS regulator.
A new report from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) paints a grim picture of the state of maternal healthcare in the country, sparking fears about the safety of mothers and babies.
Based on inspections of 131 maternity units, the CQC has revealed a host of serious issues. The report has heightened the sense of crisis surrounding a service that cares for the 600,000 women who give birth in England each year.
Among the most concerning findings is the fact that 65% of maternity units were deemed unsafe for women to give birth in. A staggering 47% of NHS trusts were flagged as needing safety improvement, while 18% were rated inadequate.
The CQC also discovered that some hospitals were not properly recording incidents of severe harm and that staff shortages and a lack of life-saving equipment were widespread.
The health secretary, Wes Streeting, has voiced his own anxiety about the state of maternity care, confessing that the situation keeps him awake at night.
“When it comes to the crisis in our maternity services, it is one of the biggest issues that keeps me awake at night, worrying about the quality of care being delivered today and the risk of disaster greeting women in labour tomorrow.”
Wes Streeting
Long Delays Leading To Dangerous Outcomes
One of the most shocking aspects of the CQC report is the revelation that some women are discharging themselves from hospitals before they are even assessed due to the lengthy delays at triage.
This has raised concerns about how much worse the system could become if these issues remain unresolved.
Nicola Wise, the CQC’s director of secondary and specialist care, stressed the importance of improving maternity care. “We cannot allow an acceptance of shortfalls that are not tolerated in other services,” Wise said.
She highlighted the need for staff to be supported to provide the high-quality care they aspire to deliver for mothers and babies.
Among the CQC’s findings was the disturbing trend of hospitals failing to acknowledge the suffering experienced by women as a result of receiving poor care.
This failure, combined with shortages in staff and equipment, has prompted the watchdog to warn that preventable harm must not become an accepted norm in NHS maternity services.
Serious Gaps In Safety Measures Revealed
Streeting underscored the urgent need for reforms to improve the state of maternal healthcare. He pointed out that systemic issues across maternity services are threatening the safety of women and their babies. “What we have seen, in the case of specific trusts, are problems and risk factors that exist right across maternity services across the country,” he said.
The report’s timing is particularly significant given that the Labour government is grappling with financial constraints. These issues have also prevented them from addressing other pressing public health needs, such as expanding free school meals to every primary school child in England.
Despite calls from organizations like the Child Poverty Action Group and the National Education Union, Streeting emphasized that Labour’s focus must remain on the larger public health crisis facing the UK.
While the state of maternal care has cast a long shadow over the NHS, there is a glimmer of positive news.
The Commonwealth Fund, a US-based global health thinktank, has praised the NHS as the third-best healthcare system among the ten countries it analyzed.
The thinktank’s findings pointed to the NHS’s strengths, particularly its universal care model, which ensures that patients don’t face crippling medical bills.
As Streeting aptly put it, the crisis in maternity care is an issue that cannot wait any longer for action.
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