West Suffolk Hospital: Trust fined over childbirth death communication

West Suffolk Hospital said its communication with a bereaved family was "not good enough"

A hospital has been fined for not being open and honest with the family of a patient who died during childbirth.

The woman died as a result of complications in childbirth at West Suffolk Hospital in Bury St Edmunds in October 2018.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) fined the hospital £2,500 for two breaches of duty of candour rules.

The hospital said it had apologised to the family for the "unnecessary distress" and had improved procedures.

The CQC found the hospital trust had failed to notify the family "as soon reasonably possible" and failed to provide them with an account of the incident in a "timely manner".

The CQC's deputy chief inspector of hospitals said Fiona Allinson: "Under the duty of candour, all providers are required to be open and honest with patients or their families when something goes wrong or that appears to have caused significant harm.

"We issued two fixed penalty notices following the death of a patient at the trust and their handling of notifying the family in 2018.

"There was a significant delay in following the duty of candour."

'Unnecessary distress'

Sue Wilkinson, chief nurse at the West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust, said: "In this case our communications with a patient's family were not good enough, and we have apologised to them for the way this was handled and the unnecessary distress this must have caused them at a very difficult time.

"We take the CQC's findings very seriously, and have already taken steps to improve the way we correspond with relatives following a patient's death."

Maternity staff at the hospital recently sent a whistleblowing letter to inspectors saying they felt "exhausted and broken" by staff shortages.

The letter said the midwives had spoken out because standards of care had fallen sharply.

Last week the hospital's interim chief executive Craig Black said staff were right to publicly air their concerns and Ms Wilkinson said the hospital was "working on a long-term plan" for midwifery.