The Care Quality Commission has rated the maternity services at North Midlands NHS Trust as requires significant improvement. 

University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust in Stoke on Trent must make significant changes by June 2023 to ensure patient safety.

An inspection in March reported that staff did not have enough systems in place to ensure patients were looked after to the standard they should be.  Staff had also failed to implement a prioritisation process to ensure delays in the induction of labour were monitored and effectively managed.

One of the main things reported to be inadequate was the maternity triage process that had sadly seen families suffer an intrauterine death and a still born baby. Both families had waited for over an hour to be triaged. The biggest issue was that triage times were not being recorded, which led to confusion as to when families were seen. This could have put patients at increased harm and indeed in some instances did.

It has been reported that the Trust has to implement these changes in order to avoid further action being taken against them. 

It is really disheartening to learn that despite attempts to collaborate with Hospital Trust’s to assist with changes, little has been done to ensure improvements have been made. We appreciate that there are struggles throughout the NHS affecting many of the staff and infrastructure. However, patient safety should always come first.

If you have been affected by the treatment and care provided by this trust. Please get it in touch so that we can begin to support you, like we do so many other families.