Failing maternity units operating for more than 200 days before special measures put in place
Failing maternity units are operating for more than 200 days on average after official inspections and before special measures are put in place.
Data obtained by The Telegraph has revealed that the time between an inspection taking place and maternity units being declared "inadequate" and put in special measures by the health watchdog has tripled since the pandemic.
Meanwhile, the proportion of baby deaths that could have been avoided with better care has doubled, according to expert analysis at the University of Oxford, while maternal deaths are at a 20-year high.
The revelations come after a report into the Care Quality Commission (CQC) this week found there were "significant failings" at the crisis-hit regulator.
The review from Dr Penny Dash, the chair of the North West London integrated care board, found the delays in inspections were resulting in "lost time" for services to make improvements, among other failings.
Inspectors from the CQC assess services before compiling a report. In the case of badly performing services, the report makes recommendations for urgent improvements.
Wes Streeting, the health and social care secretary, declared the regulator "not fit for purpose" and has commissioned a review of the "complex web" of patient safety quangos of which there are six, including the CQC.
It took the CQC 213 days on average to declare an NHS maternity unit inadequate after inspection in 2023-24, according to data obtained by The Telegraph.
Midwives told The Telegraph of inspectors threatening to shut down units on the day of inspection but then heard nothing until a report was published months later.
Before the pandemic, reports for failing maternity units took just 75 days on average to be published, while last year it was 150 days.
In total, The Telegraph analysis found that 105 maternity units had waited more than 100 days for a report, while Birmingham Heartlands Hospital waited the longest at 296 days. The York Hospital and Scarborough Hospital both waited 262 days.
The Dash review found the quality of the reports was also poor, with examples of staff copying and pasting findings from other services and different findings in summaries compared with the main reports.
Experts at Oxford developed a perinatal mortality review tool, which has been used since 2018 to understand why baby deaths occur and to "consider whether issues with the provision of care may have contributed to late miscarriage, stillbirth, or neonatal death".
The number of baby deaths attributed to NHS failings has increased every year since, with 822 of the 4,111 deaths reviewed between March 2022 and February 2023, considered "avoidable".
The figure for last year is double the one in 10 avoidable deaths that occurred in 2018 and is slightly up 18 per cent from the previous year. Almost all deaths are reviewed to establish if there are issues with care.
Donna Ockenden, the senior midwife in charge of the largest review ever into maternity failings at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH) where hundreds of babies have died or been injured, told The Telegraph it was "very concerning".
"The news that the CQC's inspection reports and ratings have become increasingly delayed following assessment, I find very concerning," she said.
Ms Ockenden added the issue had been "evident throughout my time as chair of the independent review of maternity services at both Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals NHS Trust (SaTH) and NUH, where we now know that the given CQC rating did not reflect the performance of the service at that time".
"It is essential that the CQC take immediate action to address the concerns raised so that together we can improve maternity safety, and care across all services. I am hopeful that under new leadership that trust will be restored in the CQC's regulation," she said.
A recent CQC report found two-thirds of maternity services were "unsafe" .
The regulator has appointed Sir Julian Hartley to take over as chief executive. He is currently the chief executive of NHS Providers.
Gill Walton, the chief executive of the Royal College of Midwives, told The Telegraph: "Regulatory bodies inspecting and reviewing services must be effective and efficient if we are to improve the delivery of safe care to women, their babies, and their families."
She said regulators "should not be above scrutiny themselves" and that the college had "previously raised concerns about the negative impact some regulatory approaches were having".
The CQC was asked for comment.
