PERFORMANCE: Croydon University Hospital’s maternity unit has been found not to be meeting six essential standards by health regulator the Care Quality Commission and to have been putting patient safety at risk.
The commission said that despite the recent creation of an action plan to improve the service the trust was also yet to deliver effective learning from past incidents to all of the unit’s staff.
The CQC visited the hospital in February after a number of issues were identified. It found there was an insufficient number of midwives at the unit to ensure patient safety and has told the hospital it must take action to address the shortage. It said the trust was in the process of recruiting additional midwives at the time of the review.
The commission states that it is also concerned about recent maternal deaths at the hospital and the trust’s ability to ensure optimum care in emergency situations.
Standards focusing on the safety and suitability of equipment, the safety and accessibility of surroundings and the standard of care provided by support staff were also found to be not being met.
A trust spokeswoman said: “The issues raised (in the report) were already being addressed and have been the focus of a detailed improvement plan for the past few months.”
Source date
27 April 2011
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