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Maternity services in England are so inadequate that cases of women receiving poor care and being harmed in childbirth are in danger of becoming “normalised”, the NHS regulator has said.
A report by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) based on inspections of 131 maternity units sets out a series of problems, adding to the sense of crisis that has engulfed an NHS service that cares for 600,000 women a year that she gives birth and her children.
The sad results of the watchdog came as Wes Streeting, the health secretary, admitted he felt acute anxiety about “the risk of disaster that greets women in labor tomorrow”.
In its report, the CQC says the problems in maternity care are so deep-rooted that:
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Some women, frustrated at facing such long delays to be assessed at triage, discharge themselves before being seen.
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65% of the units are not safe for women to give birth, 47% of the trusts are assessed as needing to improve security and another 18% are rated inadequate.
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Some hospitals do not record incidents that resulted in serious harm.
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There is a widespread lack of staff and in some places a lack of potentially life-saving equipment.
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Hospitals do not always consider the suffering of women after receiving poor care.
Nicola Wise, the CQC’s director of secondary and specialist care, said: “We cannot allow the acceptance of deficiencies that are not tolerated in other services.”
She said it was vital that the NHS ensures “that poor care and preventable harm are not normalised, and that staff are supported to deliver the high quality care they want to deliver to mothers and babies today and in the future”.
Streeting underlined the seriousness of what he called the crisis in maternity care at an event on Wednesday to launch a report by the thinktank IPPR on improving health in the UK.
“When it comes to the crisis in our maternity services across the country, it is one of the biggest issues that keeps me awake at night, worried about the quality of care provided today (and) at the risk of a disaster that greets working women tomorrow,” he said. “I think that what we have seen, in the case of specific trusts, are problems and risk factors that exist right in maternity services throughout the country.”
He also said the dire state of public finances the Labor government had inherited meant it would not be able to extend free school meals to all primary school children in England. Last week the Child Poverty Action Group, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and the National Education Union urged the ministers to take that step to reduce the number of children who do not have enough to eat and also the growing number who are overweight.
Streeting emphasized Labour’s determination to tackle the UK’s status as “the sick man of Europe” through concerted action on public health.
“I think we’re in this scary situation where we live longer but get sick earlier. It’s terrible for the quality of life, it’s also terrible for the country, for the labor market and for the financial sustainability of our health services and care,” he said.
However, he added that despite Labour’s plans to reduce the burden of killer diseases, it would not become “the funny police” and start checking what people eat and drink.
In good news for the NHS, it won praise from the Commonwealth Fund, a US-based global health thinktank. It is judged that, despite its misfortunes, it was the third best system out of 10 analyzed, mainly because it provides universal and free care to obtain at the point of need.
“The NHS may be in deep trouble right now from a UK perspective, but it’s all relative. The US is worse on almost every count,” said report co-author Reginald Williams II. “While waiting lists may be a problem and facilities need upgrades, the cost of health is not the failure of individuals (as in the United States).”