Under-fire trust hires dozens of midwives

NEWLY-qualified midwife Fay Read at the Royal Oldham Hospital

NEW recruits are supporting maternity services at Royal Oldham and North Manchester General Hospitals after a £1.5 million investment.

An additional 31 midwives have joined the workforce at Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust which operates both hospital sites.

Maternity services at the hospitals recently came into the firing line after a secret review was undertaken by the trust's new maternity director Deborah Carter.

Mothers and babies were found to have died as a result of clinical errors, bad staff attitudes and chronic shortages.

The move to employ the fully qualified staff is part of the NHS trust's improvement plan.

Helen Howard, newly appointed divisional director of midwifery at the trust, said: "I am delighted to welcome our new midwives to the organisation.

"Staffing has been a challenge for us and having new midwives is going to make a real difference to the service.

"I look forward to the new recruits being part of the future of our maternity services."

The internal review outlined a string of avoidable deaths and long-term injuries caused by failures in care over many years.

Staff shortages were found to link to a series of deaths, including one baby who died because antenatal staff had failed to spot its mother's blood type.

The discoveries came to light in November following a freedom of information request by the Manchester Evening News.

Professor Matthew Makin, medical director at Pennine, said at the time: "The priority is for all of the trust's services to meet the high standards that patients expect and deserve.

"We are steadily making the necessary improvements so that patients can receive reliable, high-quality care across all of our services."

Leadership

Recruitment of midwives and a focus on clinical leadership have been prioritised by the trust who have taken on 58 new midwives across the two maternity units since April 2016.

The range of newly qualified midwives through to experienced team leaders began working at the two hospitals in October to fill existing vacancies.

Of those, 16 have been stationed at the Royal Oldham and 15 at North Manchester General Hospital.

Fay Read, a newly qualified midwife, told the Chronicle: "This is a highly rewarding job and I am enjoying every minute.

"I have felt well supported by my fellow new recruits, the existing midwives and the more senior staff since I began in October.

"I have enjoyed orientating to all the different clinical areas such as the birthing centre, community, labour ward, the antenatal, postnatal and labour wards.

"I am looking forward to supporting the trust and all the existing midwives in their plans to further improve maternity care at the trust so that the women and newborn babies we treat get the best care they possibly can do, on every occasion."

The trust employs 360 hospital and community midwives, who helped pregnant women give birth to 9,785 babies last year.

Additional recruitment of qualified midwives is set to continue as part of the trust's plan.

Supplementary clinical leadership support is also being provided by staff at St Mary's Hospital in Manchester to help stabilise and strengthen services in the North Manchester maternity unit.