County’s maternity shortages ‘slowly improving’

Following an inadequate rating by the Care Quality Commission last July due to staff shortages, a Gloucestershire hospital trust said staffing issues affecting maternity services are “slowly improving”.

Maternity services at Stroud and Cheltenham Aveta Birthing Unit were also suspended due to a lack of staff.

A report discussed at a Health Overview and Scrutiny committee meeting earlier this week found Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust had undertaken a significant plan to retain current staff, and the report also said it had created a dedicated recruitment team, put midwifery staffing on a the risk register and looked at international recruitment.

Director of midwifery at the trust, Lisa Stephens, said “The midwife to birth rate ratio has fluctuated over the last six month period.”

She added that one of its key requirements was to provide one-to-one care, with one midwife to each patient.

“Our current compliance is 97%, what we should be achieving is 100%.  We are improving our vacancy rate and we are continuing with some initiatives to improve our workforce.”

Deborah Lee, head of the hospital trust, said there were currently 25 vacancies in its midwifery service.

Ms Lee added “We ran a recruitment event as we continue to do – we had 31 potential midwives during that event – that’s a really considerable number.”

Chadwick Lawrence’s team of medical negligence lawyers have years of experience in high value and complex medical negligence compensation claims and have an excellent record.  The team is led by Tony May, a specialist cerebral palsy and birth injury solicitor, who has over 20 years experience in handling cases in which babies have been brain damaged or sustained other injuries as a result of medical negligence.  He and his team continue to represent many cerebral palsy children and young adults in medical negligence claims.  Tony also acts as a Court of Protection Deputy for many of the cerebral palsy and brain damaged clients that he has represented, so we can continue to support you after your case is settled.  Tony can be contacted by email on tonymay@chadlaw.co.uk.  Alternatively, please call and speak to any of Chadwick Lawrence’s specialist medical negligence Legal Aid and no win, no fee solicitors for free legal advice on Freephone 0800 304 7382