By Matt Jarram, Local Democracy Reporter
Concerns have been raised that there is a lack of trauma support for families who lost their babies at Queen’s Medical Centre and the City Hospital.
Healthwatch Nottingham and Nottinghamshire raised the concern at the health and adult social care scrutiny committee at Nottingham City Council on Thursday, June 23.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has kept maternity services rated as ‘inadequate’ at the City Hospital and Queen’s Medical Centre, which were first given the rating following a 2020 inspection.
Inspectors found ‘serious problems remain’ in a report published on May 27, which said the maternity units ‘did not have enough staff’ to keep women and babies safe.
The trust has paid out millions of pounds in compensation to parents whose babies have died or been injured.
Donna Ockenden has since been appointed to lead a new review into inadequate maternity services at Nottingham hospitals.
At the health and adult social care scrutiny committee, on June 23, Georgia Power (Lab), chair of the committee, said the aim is to have managers from Nottingham University Hospitals Trust back in front of the committee in September to answer questions.
Sarah Collis, chair of Healthwatch Nottingham and Nottinghamshire, said she had recently raised concerns with the local clinical commissioning group.
She said: “We are raising our concern which is to do with the lack of trauma support – assurance there will be something to support these families like post traumatic stress disorder support which is not there in the system.”
Speaking at the end of May, the chair of Nottingham University Hospital’s board, Nick Carver, said the trust’s maternity services need to ‘up the pace’ on improvement.
Michelle Rhodes, Chief Nurse at NUH, also added last month: “We’ve been really cautious about making sure we are thoroughly going through the evidence that has been supplied to us.
“We know there’s a national shortage of midwives and we’ve got to stand out as being better than elsewhere.
“We’ve met with the university who would be prepared to provide us with more student midwives.”
