Leeds maternity services now ‘inadequate’ after inspectors act on parents’ concerns

The birth services at the two Leeds hospitals were reduced by health regulators as “inadequate” than “good”, because their failures created a “important risk” for women and babies.

Concerns from personnel and patients on maintenance quality and personnel levels were confirmed by the maintenance quality commission (CQC) during Leeds Training Hospitals (LTH) NHS Trust.

The UK’s regulator has now issued a warning notification that requires it to take action immediately to improve confidence. Newborn services also require “improvement” from “good”.

BBC spoke to 67 families in the last six months He says that their babies experience safe care, including parents who say that they are experiencing preventive injury or death. We also talked to five information flying, saying that the previous CQC “good” rating does not reflect the reality.

In response to the decline of CQC, LTH, Leeds General Revir (LGI) and St James’ University Hospital, said he committed to develop birth and newborn services.

During the CQC, December 2024 and January 2025 inspections, risk management, safe environment, learning follow -up, infection prevention and control, drug management and personnel found official regulation violations.

The concerns emphasized in birth units in both hospitals include:

• People were “not safe” and “under the risk of preventive damage” – investigations of events and the points that emerged to make learning possible were not always evident

• Babies and families that are not always supported and treated with honor and respect

• Leadership does not support the presentation of high quality care “under an acceptable standard”.

• Personnel concerns and incidents are reluctant to bring up – because there was a culture of trust “

• Although the personnel are passionate about their work, they are struggling to ensure the maintenance standards they want due to personnel problems.

LTH provided evidence that the CQC reported that there were personnel problems between May and September 2024, indicating that he reported the “red flag event”.

The findings of CQC also emphasized the concerns of the newborn services in both hospitals and with the shortage of qualified personnel to look at babies with complex needs.

In this autumn, Trust says that 35 new qualified midwives began to work and also appoints additional midwifery leadership roles.

The regulator will closely monitor trust services, including further inspections to ensure safe care while implementing CQC director of CQC in northern UK.

“We want to thank all people who boldly share their concerns.” He said. “This helps us to have a better picture of the care provided for people and to focus our audit on the relevant fields.”

A family, who said that they believed that their children would survive if they had better treatment, were Amarjit Kaur and Mandip Singh Matharoo, whose baby was dead in January 2024.

The CQC report emphasizes how inadequate the service is, which causes the patient’s harm “.

“Unfortunately, our daughter ASEES and we hope it will trigger a serious change in the system, but we hope that patients will take the concern of those who use the service more seriously.”

After finding that an investigation had a series of “gross failures”, Fiona-winner Ramm, who died in 2020, described the findings of CQC as “terrible”.

“The concerns we have brought up for five years have been proven to be true,” he says.

But he believes that CQC is slow.

“CQC examined Leeds in 2023 and somehow evaluated them as good. Let us be clear that these problems have not only emerged in the last two years.”

In contrast, the CQC, 2023, said that the 2023 review is part of a national birth inspection program that finds some areas for improvement, but also sets some good practices.

“As an independent regulator, we are determined to reflect the experiences of our evaluations on the quality and safety of all services and the experiences of people who use them.”

All of the 67 families, speaking with the BBC, want an independent examination of Trust’s birth services – and a group of health secretary Wes Streeting asked the senior midwife Donna Ockenden.

Some Leeds families participated in other -year -old parents from the UK this week to encourage Mr. Streeting to organize a national investigation on birth safety – he has not yet made a decision.

“My priority is to make sure we’re acted urgently to ensure these improvements,” LTH’s General Manager Prof Phil Wood said: “

Güven committed to providing “safe, compassionate care” and began to make improvements, including recruitment, and began to deal with concerns about culture.

“We offer more than 8,500 babies every year, and the majority of them are safe and positive experiences.” He said. “But we know that this is not the experience of all families.”

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