Maternity at Hull Royal Infirmary "inadequate" says CQC
The Care Quality Commission has called for urgent improvements to be made at the hospital
Following the CQC inspection, the overall rating for maternity services at Hull Royal Infirmary was downgraded from good to inadequate. The ratings for how safe and well-led the service is have also both gone from good to inadequate.
Hull Royal Infirmary was listed as requires improvement, but is also now inadequate. The overall rating for the Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust is still requires improvement.
Carolyn Jenkinson, deputy director of secondary and specialist healthcare at the CQC said:
“When we inspected the maternity services at Hull, it was really concerning to see such a deterioration in the standard of care being delivered.
"We saw areas where urgent improvements are needed to ensure safer care is provided to women, people using this service, and their babies."
The inspection identified an inadequate triage system, understaffing, and unkindness between staff. It also found that the service was not doing enough to prevent serious incidents.
Carolyn Jenkinson said: "It's really important that when things go wrong, organisations learn from it and then prevent it happening again. That wasn't always happening in Hull.
"Patients' needs weren't assessed in a timely way, so their care couldn't be prioritised so that posed a risk both to the women and to babies."
In response to the CQC's finding, a Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust spokesperson said:
"We are extremely disappointed with the outcome of this inspection, and we acknowledge the findings of the CQC in their entirety.
"Since the inspectors visited we have reviewed all of the areas highlighted by the CQC and we are taking immediate action to address the urgent issues raised in the report."
Carolyn Jenkinson said:
"If we felt that the service was really unsafe we would've taken more action to stop the services that were being offered. We haven't done that; we've asked the trust to make improvements and we're monitoring that those are being made."