Monitor to investigate specialist trust

These concerns led the CQC to issue the trust with two warning notices in these areas.

Frances Shattock, regional director at Monitor, said the investigation would assess whether the issues flagged by the CQC were “symptomatic of wider problems with how the trust is being run”.

According to Monitor, its investigation would also look at the trust’s financial position following “concerns raised by the trust as part of the forward planning process”.

The CQC’s report follows an unannounced inspection of Liverpool Women’s in April, the report of which was published last week.

It found that while there had been an improvement in staffing levels compared to the trust’s last inspection in July 2013, one to one care during childbirth was only being provided in 77 per cent of cases when all women should receive this level of care.

According to the CQC, staff shortages had resulted in a quarter of women on the midwifery led unit who requested an epidural being declined, even though some of these women had stated in their birth plans that epidural was their pain relief method of choice.

The CQC described the trust’s documents on risk management for staff as “ambiguous and unclear” and that its risk registers “demonstrated an inconsistency in risk ratings and lack of focused management of risks”.

Responding to the CQC’s findings, Liverpool Women’s chief executive Kathryn Thomson said: “I am fully confident that patients are safe in the care of Liverpool Women’s.”

She said maternity staffing levels were “better than average for maternity units across the UK” according figures from the  National Audit Office.

Ms Thomson said the trust was working to “streamline and simplify” its risk systems and processes and had secured the input of a “leading risk expert” who was working to achieve this.

She added: “We are responding positively and proactively to the findings of the CQC in the interests of women, babies and their families.”

Liverpool Women’s is one of two trusts in the country that specialises in providing healthcare for women and their babies.