Two maternity services in the UK have been issued with formal warnings in the past week, with one set to be closed for half a year.
Both Yeovil maternity services in Somerset, England, and Ninewells Hospital in Tayside, Scotland, have been issued with warnings from their respective countries’ watchdogs.
It comes amid a growing number of maternity scandals across the UK, with a report last year finding almost half of inspected services across NHS England were inadequate or required improvement.
A landmark inquiry also found that good care for pregnant women is “the exception rather than the rule”.
Yeovil maternity services will close for at least six months after a warning from the Care Quality Commission, with women now being sent more than 25 miles away to Taunton.
The closure comes after the CQC warned the services were failing to meet staffing requirements in the paediatric unit.
The service will be closed from Monday at 5pm, and comes almost exactly a year after the maternity unit was rated “inadequate” by the CQC.
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The local Liberal Democrat MP, Adam Dance, called the closure “devastating”.
“They will be forced to use already stretched services tens of miles away and I, like many of my constituents who have already been in contact, are deeply fearful this could leave families in turmoil,” he said.
72 hours to have labour induced
In Scotland, NHS Tayside has been formally ordered to improve maternity services at Ninewells Hospital following an unannounced inspection.
Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) first inspected Tayside in January, before returning a month later, after it raised a number of concerns, including that breastfeeding equipment was being cleaned in a sink with kitchen utensils.
The latest report found some women faced delays of up to 72 hours to have their labour induced.
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It also found some staff were unsure of the location of emergency birthing medicine, as well as discovering that missing electrical leads meant only three out of five foetal heartbeat monitors were fully working.
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Donna Maclean, chief inspector of HIS, acknowledged that care was “compassionate” and “women we spoke with were complimentary of the care provided”.
But she added: “During the revisit, we were not assured that sufficient progress or improvement had been made with some concerns, and we formally wrote to NHS Tayside outlining areas of assurance required.”
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Every year, eye-watering sums are spent on maternity clinical negligence, including £1.1bn in 2023.
