Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust criticised over midwife exhaustion

Whistleblowers told inspectors midwives were exhausted and there were not enough staff to keep women and babies safe

Midwives at an NHS trust were worried about being too exhausted to keep patients safe, a health watchdog has found.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) lowered its rating for maternity services at Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (HHFT).

An inspection was carried out following complaints from patients and concerns raised by staff whistleblowers.

The chief nurse at HHFT, Julie Dawes, said the report was "disappointing".

The trust is responsible for Andover War Memorial Hospital, Basingstoke and North Hampshire Hospital, and Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester.

The unannounced CQC inspection in November found the service did not have enough nursing and midwifery staff to keep women and babies safe.

Its CQC rating has gone from good to requires improvement, while the trust has retained its overall good rating.

'Extremely challenging'

The commission said: "Midwives had been going above and beyond to work in extremely challenging circumstances and spoke of low staffing levels and exhaustion."

The report also raised concerns managers "were not always able to manage effectively".

Other issues highlighted included a failure to implement recommendations to reduce the additional risk of Covid-19 for women from black, Asian and minority ethnic groups.

Staff did not always identify and treat sepsis in line with national guidance, the report also said.

The CQC's head of hospital inspection, Amanda Williams, said since the inspection, the trust had put steps in place to ensure there were enough staff in departments.

She added: "The trust leadership team knows what it must do and they have assured us that action plans are in place to drive the improvements needed."

Julie Dawes, chief nurse at HHFT, said the trust had been forced to redeploy staff as well as suspend training and education to focus on patient care in the past 18 months.

She said: "Safe and high quality maternity care is a priority for us and as such this is a disappointing report to receive.

"Our maternity teams continue to work tirelessly to support the women in their care. This is a really useful report in supporting our vision of providing outstanding care to our patients and we are totally committed to resolving all of the issues raised."

Maria Miller, MP for Basingstoke, said while staff had "worked tirelessly to provide the best maternity care", severe staff shortages had "made a difficult situation worse".

She added: "The trust acted immediately, but I have also asked what further work is being done to ensure the same situation can never happen again, particularly understanding how the two maternity units in the trust can make best use of the staff and resources available.

"Parents want the safest possible care for the delivery of their babies, that has to be the priority above everything else."