Broomfield Hospital was issued a “letter of intent” by the Care Quality Commission to ensure rapid improvement, after an inspection in March raised fears over triage times and capacity to support women, people using the service and their babies.
The health watchdog admits, due to a large-scale transformation programme at CQC, this report was not published as soon as it should have been, and a follow-up inspection in July showed some improvements have been implemented since the Mid and South Essex NHS Trust set out an immediate action plan.
During the unannounced visit in March, inspectors found staff at the Chelmsford hospital were unsure what constituted a maternity red flag. A midwifery red flag is a warning sign something maybe wrong with staffing.
Staff also told inspectors leaders were not proactive at preventing incidents before they had occurred, and claimed senior leadership teams did not always learn from poor outcomes after incidents had been reported.
However, Rob Assall, CQC’s director of operations in the East of England, says the watchdog has seen evidence of steps taken to improve safety, including a telephone triage line and caesarean section waiting room area.
Other changes include daily safety huddles to flag and address any risks, and a thorough review of equipment to confirm its safety.
Chief Executive of Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust, Matthew Hopkins, said: “We have made significant improvements to our maternity service and acted on the feedback from inspectors immediately when they visited in March 2024.
“It was hugely disappointing to be rated inadequate in the March inspection, and to wait almost a year for this report to be released. It is also disappointing that we are still waiting for the report from the July inspection.
“The CQC recognised the actions we have already taken to improve, and I want to reassure families that we are committed to providing high-quality, safe maternity care.”
Across the trust, Southend and Basildon hospitals’ maternity services are rated as requires improvement since inspections took place in December 2022.
The March 2024 report rated the maternity service at Broomfield as requires improvement for “effective”, and good for “responsive”. However, the service received an inadequate rating for safe and well-led, leading to its downgrade.