East Surrey Hospital maternity services downgraded by watchdog

Patients were at risk of not receiving the care they needed for safe births, inspectors found

Maternity services at a Surrey hospital have had their rating downgraded from outstanding to requires improvement by the health watchdog.

Early warning checks were not always recorded correctly at East Surrey Hospital's maternity unit, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) found.

This put patients at risk of not receiving the care they needed for safe births, the CQC said.

The hospital said it had put in place "a robust improvement plan".

The ratings for both East Surrey Hospital and the Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust remained as outstanding overall, the CQC said.

Carolyn Jenkinson, the CQC's deputy director of secondary and specialist healthcare, said: "Not enough had been done to maintain the standard seen at previous inspections."

She said staff using an early warning system for detecting deterioration in patients had not ensured all records had been completed correctly.

"This places people at risk of not receiving the care and attention needed for a safe birth," she said.

The inspectors also found that bed spaces were not always clean or "visibly free of dust, dirt, and bodily fluids, which was a risk to people's health".

The service did not always have enough staff to care for patients and keep them safe, with not all staff receiving appropriate safeguarding training.

They also reported medicines were not always well managed, and not all infection prevention and control measures were effective or completed appropriately.

Analysis

By Mark Norman, health correspondent, BBC South East

This is a significant drop in the trust's rating and will be a worry for both hospital managers and - more importantly - for parents to be.

Maternity services across the region, and across the country, have made headlines for the wrong reasons and are under pressure to improve.

The issues highlighted in Surrey are many of the issues that we have seen in maternity wards where babies and mothers have died - not enough staff, poor medicine management, poor infection control and issues with leadership.

However, they noted the unit had an inclusive midwife in post whose job it was to promote equality and diversity for staff and patients, and tackle health inequalities.

Tina Hetherington, chief nurse of Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust, said: "I want to apologise for where we haven't got it right and the effect this may have on patient confidence in our maternity services.

"Since the inspection we have put in place a robust improvement plan - including ensuring tougher infection control measures, more frequent cleanliness checks, and more thorough daily safety checks of medicines and specialist emergency care equipment," she said.

"We are clear there is more work to do."

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