A HEALTH trust’s maternity services need to be improved after concerns were raised about bullying, hierarchy and dysfunctional teams.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) made unannounced focused visits in May to the maternity unit at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, Cotswold Birth Centre in Chipping Norton, and Horton General Hospital's Midwifery-led unit in Banbury.

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The visits were made after a whistle-blower reported concerns about the culture in maternity services at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust in January.

The trust’s rating for maternity services has been downgraded from ‘good’ to ‘requires improvement’ after inspectors found several flaws, including that staff ‘could not always respect women’s privacy and dignity’.

Oxford Mail: HISTORY: Working on a maternity unit. Picture: Pixabay

Inspectors found that the environment was not always clean and sometimes staff did not assess risks to women.

They also did not always manage medicines well and some staff did not feel ‘respected, supported, and valued’.

The trust says it will put together a ‘comprehensive action plan’ to address these areas of concern and is proud of the positive feedback that the CQC issued.

These included that staff provided good care and treatment and worked well together for the benefit of women in their care.

The service also planned care to meet the needs of local people, took account of women's individual needs, and made it easy for people to give feedback.

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Inspectors found that there was enough staff to care for women and keep them safe and they had training in key skills, understood how to protect women from abuse, and managed safety well.

But managers did not always monitor the effectiveness of the service through local audit, and there was a lack of effective governance processes.

Oxford Mail: The John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford

North Oxfordshire MP Victoria Prentis, who said maternal safety has always been her ‘top priority’, said: “While it is encouraging to hear that services are run well and that staff seem to be committed to making the necessary improvements, more must be done to put an end to the culture issues that have plagued the department for so many years.

“I am grateful to both the whistleblowers who had the courage to make their concerns known about the culture of the service, and to the Care Quality Commission who acted quickly following these complaints.

"It is clear that a lot of work needs to be done.”

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Dr Bruno Holthof, chief executive officer of Oxford University Hospitals, said: "I am delighted that the CQC inspectors have publicly recognised in the report published today that our maternity staff provide good care and treatment and work well together for the benefit of women in their care, and also identified a number of other positive areas.

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"However, it is important to acknowledge that the CQC inspectors also found significant areas for improvement and raised concerns which have resulted in the rating for our maternity services going down from 'good' to 'requires improvement'.

"The Trust Board is working with the senior management team in our maternity services to develop a comprehensive action plan to address these areas for improvement and concerns. Completion of the action plan will be monitored through the Trust's governance processes and completion dates for key actions will be agreed."

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