To feel annoyed. Hospital still haven’t rectified notes about birth?

[Lina012]

Baby is 9 months now. I had a c section with a pph, blood loss over 2L. I had a blood transfusion and a balloon put in. Discharge notes state normal blood loss of 500ml, no complications, nothing about haemorrhage or blood transfusion. Since I had the 8 week check I’ve been trying to get the midwives to correct this. I’ve been told multiple times “Leave it with me and we’ll get it corrected”. The last time I called, the midwife went through all my notes and said she didn’t understand why it was incorrectly noted but she’d get it rectified. Still nothing. It’s not that big of a deal I guess except I’ve had 2 gps telling me I most definitely did not haemorrhage or have a blood transfusion because the notes state I didn’t. This isn’t the first time I’ve had inaccuracies with the hospital. I had something wrote down on my labour notes wrong from the pregnancy before and the consultant was telling me it didn’t happen because the notes said different, this is what bothers me.

Put it in writing and copy to the Director of Womens' and children's services.

You have to put everything in writing. Verbal conversations mean absolutely nothing.

This is bonkers. I can’t even imagine how this has happened? Complain formally and ask for a postnatal debrief, go through the events either a consultant and ask them to change it there and then. Also to send a letter to your gp.

But your records will show that you had a blood transfusion. This will be an entirely
separate record to your birth notes

Complain to PALS. It is important this is accurate so they know about the risk of PPH for the next birth (if you want to have one).

Have you had a birth debrief?

Have you complained? Complain to PALS and the hospital will have to rectify it

No her records SHOULD say that. According to my records I’m allergic to sheep and had never had a vaccine. I have no allergies and had all the normal imms + travel jabs + 5x Covid!

Do a subject access request and see what comes back. Could be theatre notes have been separated, but your blood transfusion must be recorded in your notes or that's a massive problem. Agree about everything in writing - and as high up as possible.

Good luck! I tried to do similar and get my notes to reflect a conversation between myself and the midwife in the first hour after birth - there were enough witnesses! But sadly they’ve never been changed to reflect what actually happened and my baby is now 11. Luckily the Ockenden report was that year and I was able to speak the truth to them.

@Itsthenameisntit Everything that was sent back to my gp states normal blood loss. They received the same discharge notes that I was given which is all incorrect. It’s only the midwives that have access to my antenatal/ delivery notes which are actually correct.

@Itsthenameisntit Ok but none of this documentation was sent over to my gp. I have asked 3 gps to add a note about my birth summary and they have said they can’t and can only go off what has been sent back to them. As it stands they have nothing to suggest an otherwise normal c section occurred. No haemorrhage or blood transfusion noted their end

Mistakes in the birth record are easily made, unfortunately, especially when there is a lot going on as in the case of a major haemorrhage.

The blood transfusion will be recorded in your drug chart and the blood bank will also have their own paper trail.

I would just go to PALS and demand the record is corrected. You have tried playing nice and it’s not been sorted out.

@Holdonforsummer I’ve just submitted a complaint via email. There is more to complain about but I’ll see what they come back with. A midwife walked out while I was in labour and told me to remove the pessary myself which for over 2 hours I tried to do but couldn’t. I was left without a midwife and no trace of baby for 3 hours when I was given an induction at 36 weeks due to baby failing every ctg and moving less. I was due to have an induction at 37 weeks anyway due to being type 1 diabetic. That is the reason I ended up having the c section after that midwife left the room and being left on my own and the rest of the chaos. The midwives told me on reception no one was available to come and remove the pessary even though it was nearly 3 hours past when it should have been removed so had been in 27 hours by the time it was finally removed. I’d been having 2 ctg appointments every week since 27 weeks and she started failing every one from 32 weeks

Ps. The actual blood loss is probably recorded in the theatre note which the GP wouldnt be able to see. Someone needs to go through it to confirm the blood loss so that it can be correctly entered into the birth summary, which is what gets sent to the GP.

Failing than, an incident form for the major haemorrhage should have been submitted for risk/governance purposes.

@CarbonArtist Yes I did receive a letter a couple of weeks after she was born saying a risk assessment had been carried out before a board panel to discuss the pph and in all findings it was concluded the hospital took appropriate action. It stated in all cases where a pph occurred and there was a blood loss volume of 2L or greater they carry out an assessment. It was signed by a risk assessment midwife, something along those lines. I actually took this to the gp when I had the 8 weeks check up but they still wouldn’t document anything on their end

No I haven’t. The whole ordeal was quite traumatic actually. The time I was in prior to the section, I was treated negligently to say the least.

This is ridiculous!!😩

if in England have you contacted PALS, I would write a complaint letter to the director of maternity services, detailing your issues and request a birth debrief meeting.
Apols if you have already had one.
not passing on important information to your GP is dangerous.

The issue isn’t that your records are ‘wrong’ but that the blood loss and transfusion were simply not mentioned on the discharge summary sent to your GP. Surely the easy way to resolve this is to make a Subject Access Request to the Trust and then show your GP your labour records so they can make a note of the blood loss and transfusion.

A baby cannot ‘fail’ a CTG. Do you mean the CTG was pathological? Or that the Dawes Redman criteria was not met? Are you saying that the Trust missed signs of fetal distress?

I think a birth debrief meeting might help you understand what happened.

@PinotPony She didn’t pass the ctg monitoring, the doctor wouldn’t sign it off as she wasn’t moving therefore she failed. I would be on it for an hour at a time and it wouldn’t be satisfactory so would have to go back on it. I didn’t mention them missing signs of fetal distress. From 27 weeks I was having 2 ctg appointments a week, I’d be on it for half hour all good no concerns. Once I hit 32 weeks after the half hour mark she wasn’t meeting all criteria’s and they could only leave it on for an hour before moving me to triage and speaking to a doctor. I’d be put back on it and it would sometimes take 3 attempts to get a trace a doctor would sign off. That was happening at every appointment from 32 weeks. At my 36 week appointment the same thing happened. I was on the monitor for an hour and it couldn’t get signed off as she wasn’t moving so I was taken round to triage where a consultant said I could have an induction so I did

It sounds like you need a copy of the nurse/midwifery notes and that no one can access them to add to your record.

There are things you can do if you exercise your data rights. All your medical teams should have information about how to do that on their websites.

So the first thing is to exercise your right of access and submit a subject access request to the antenatal team obtain your antenatal and midwifery notes. You can do that by email and they should provide them within a calendar month.

With those you then submit a formal request to your GP to exercise your right to rectification and correct your records, providing the antenatal notes as evidence. Again they have a month to comply.

If they refuse you then ask them to document that you have made the request as an annotation to your notes and also to document that they have refused to do so along with their reason for refusing the request.

That should get you the result you need.

This page might help you https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/individual-rights/individual-rights/