Lucy Letby hospital blasted for failing mothers FOUR YEARS after nurse arrested

19 August 2023 , 20:01

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Countess of Chester Hospital (Image: PA)

Lucy Letby’s hospital was blasted by health watchdogs just last year over shocking maternity failings.

The Care Quality Commission criticised Countess of Chester Hospital over staff shortages and problems with patient records. The trust was served with two warning notices and the maternity services branded “inadequate”. The most recent full inspection in June 2022 – four years after Letby was arrested – found five new mums had a major haemorrhage, losing more than two litres of blood and having to have hysterectomies.

One faced life-threatening delays when no hysterectomy kit could be found, and no staff present in the operating room could use one. Two had not been recorded as serious. The maternity unit had to shut for 144 hours over a 12 month period because of staff shortages.

Inspectors said: “Thirty-three women had to be diverted to other maternity units for some or all aspects of their care. Of these, 13 women birthed their baby in a maternity unit not of their choosing. The main reasons cited...were short staffing.

Dramatic moment Letby is arrested at her home (Cheshire Constabulary/AFP via Ge)

“Women did not receive 1:1 care when in established labour. The service relied on staff submitting an incident form to report that the service had been too busy for them to provide safe care. Midwives in differing clinical areas told us they frequently worked over their contracted hours and missed breaks which they were not paid for.”

Baby boy has spent his life in hospital as doctors are 'scared' to discharge him

Staff morale was said to be the lowest at any NHS trust in the country, with some staff saying there was a culture of bullying and discrimination, inspectors said. A follow up inspection at the 600-bed hospital in September 2022 found some improvements. But the CQC said: “The service did not have enough staff to care for women and keep them safe.

“Staff did not always have training in key skills and did not manage safety well. Staff did not consistently assess risks to women to keep them safe. The service did not manage safety incidents well or learnt lessons from them. Shift changes and handovers did not include all necessary key information to keep women and babies safe.”

It added “More work needs to be done to improve people’s care and experiences.” The hospital said the CQC had re-inspected maternity services in July and “we welcome the findings [on] how well-led services are.” A hospital spokesman said: “We welcome the CQC’s latest findings following their inspection of the trust’s maternity services and how well-led services are in July.

“Despite unprecedented pressures on services the CQC recognised that the Trust had started to reduce the number of people waiting for treatment from referral, which is a testament to the hard work of colleagues. I am pleased that the CQC was also encouraged by our work to embed new board-level appointments, who will help strengthen our maternity services as we look to make further progress on the implementation of our improvement plan.”

John Siddle