Birth injury claim news
14/05/2007

Is staffing on our maternity wards a major problem?

A recent BBC report shown on investigative current affairs show Panorama has highlighted the birth injury crisis that could result from understaffed and overstretched maternity wards in the UK.

Reporter, Hayley Cutts, was sent undercover as an unpaid volunteer on a joint ante natal and post natal ward of Barnet Hospital, North London. Here she made some shocking revelations about the quality of care that both expectant and new mothers receive.

Devoid of training or qualification, she was given responsibilities beyond her rank and asked to perform patient observations such as blood pressure, pulse and heart rate.

Aware of the disarray they were in, the head midwife commented, "We are chocca, we've got labouring women over here, and I've got someone in the bath and another being induced."

No room at the inn
At one point there were just two midwives to 23 women and any new patients that arrived were told that there were just no beds available. Their only options were to either try an alternative hospital or stay at home, easier said than done when a baby decides it is on its way!

One woman arrived in the late stages of labour and was left to her own devices in a chair in the corridor outside the ward. Pained and uncomfortable she was left for a full 50 minutes, unexamined.

Cutts had little choice but to offer the mother-to-be comfort while being left to juggle the impossible situation, shuffling other patients around and trying desperately to find a bed for the imminent birth to take place.

Under equipped
While Cutts was undercover, staff at St Mary's Hospital in Manchester also commented that there is, "Too much workload with high risk women. Too many patients not enough support staff."

This hospital also had a significant lack of foetal heart monitors, among other vital equipment. These are used to check the baby's heart in the womb post-birth and could detect the risk of serious personal injury to the baby before birth and indicate the risk of potential birth injury. It appears that they have since increased their supplies.

Stress and strain
Midwifery is a job with tremendous responsibility for the safety of both mothers and their children. It is unusual that the lack of care is accountable to bad midwives, instead it is the amount of pressure that they are put under that places their patients in danger.

Hundreds of birth injury claims for compensation are made every year as a result of inadequate care. The medical negligence at the Barnett hospital mirrors under resourced wards throughout the UK.

In response to her findings Cutts said, "We spoke to women across the UK who reported problems similar to those that we saw undercover so there's no reason to believe that they just apply to the two hospitals that we went into."

The reality of it
Department heads were polled and 102 out of 216 stated their units were understaffed and one in five admitted they had lost staff in the past year.

According to the Royal College of Midwives, another 10,000 or so midwives are essential in the next few years.

However, the Government insists that the UK is still one of the safest countries in the world in which to give birth and that an increase in investment will result in an increase in the number of midwives on our wards.

We are sure that the future of UK maternity wards will come to light very soon under Britain's new premiership and time will tell if there will be a reduction in birth injury claims made in the UK.