Our baby died due to failings in NHS care. Any mumsnet troops out there willing and able to help me force change?

[bubble99]

One of our healthy, term twins died recently due to total mismanagement of care caused primarily by understaffing. I have posted at length about this on 'Miscarriage and Bereavement'.

I would now like to start a campaign to raise awareness of the chronic understaffing in midwifery services in London and surrounding areas where the cost of living is high.

In particular, I would like the whole issue of London and Outer London Weighting to be urgently reviewed. It seems insane that hospitals are shelling out millions to pay for agency midwives and nurses when the logical course of action would be to substantially increase the allowance paid to staff working in areas where property prices/rents are higher. This would hopefully increase recruitment and retention of staff. In addition, nurse/midwives homes which have been sold off to private developers need to be replaced so that student midwives/nurses can afford to train and live in these areas.

Anyone out there prepared to help me with some research? We are prepared to use our own tragic case to highlight the issue in the national media.

If our son's death means that you and your unborn baby are safe during labour then his death will have not been in vain.

Hi bubble. Just read this. Whatever I can do I'll happily do! Letter writing, phonecalls whatever.

ML, wish I'd said just that!

if you knew what nursing agencies charged NHS hospitals for an average d grade nurse per hour, you would pass out, no kidding its disgusting, if they would pay nurses a fraction of that per hour they would have more staff, a friend of mine who is an e grade has just left the nhs because she was fed up of the rubbish pay, bad working conditions.she works for a nursing agency and is getting 3 times what she was before.

Hi all

Rather than CATing everyone individually, could I ask that you all 'phone your local maternity units under the guise of an anxious parent-to-be.Ask if there is a 24 hour seven days a week 'bleep holder' who is in charge of coordinating the unit and has the experience/knowledge to guide junior doctors and midwives particularly in the event of clinical emergencies.We need to know if that person is supernumerary i.e.Unit coordination is their sole or primary role and that they are not counted into staffing numbers elsewhere.

I was horrified to find out that this role had been dropped two years ago at Kingston. I assume that the trust did risk assessments and balanced the salary payable to that person in relation to possible payouts as a result of legal actions in the event of negligence. I demand that this role is reinstated in all trusts nationwide.

The crucial part of this issue is after office hours and weekend/bank holiday provision. During the week there are senior midwives in administrative areas (Head of Midwifery Services) who will carry the bleep and roll up their sleeves to advise and help out with difficult clinical cases. A common feature of both Bo's and Jacob's(baby who was born brain damaged at St Georges after an undiagnosed rupturing uterus)is that both died 'out of hours' - in our case during the night and in their's on a bank holiday weekiend. Not acceptable We should be safe going into a maternity unit at any time of the day or year.

I want to make sure that, though the bleep holder is being reinstated at Kingston due to our tradgedy, it is not being held back in other hospitals. I do not want to read or hear about another baby dying due to a lack of available, skilled midwives able to advise.

hi bubble, i can find out about the maternity unit at the hospital i work at, they usually do have a 24hour a day 7 day a week bleep holder, usually a g grade or now one of the modern matrons on the acute wards, i cant speak for the maternity unit but can certainly find out.

I would second Bluebear's post - pay reviews are being rolled out across the NHS this year as part of the Agenda for Change . It is the biggest overhaul of NHS conditions and pay for over 50 years (since it was founded). It would be worth looking into this as a starting point, if you haven't already.

Have you thought about volunteering in your local hospital as a service user - there are many patient boards and groups which provide a service of feedback to staff. I do some campaigning work on a different area of NHS service user provision campaigning for change - once you have a core group set up (say 12 people from local relevant groups) - it is easy to hold public meetings. We have had a lot of response from the PCTs and Strategic Health Authorities and get a lot of press coverage. It might be worth considering this type of local approach.

Just my 2p worth - good luck.

Hi spacecadet. Are your acute unit bleep holders supernumerary? This was the issue in our case. Yes, there was a bleepholder but she was counted into the numbers on the (short staffed) antenatal ward. Instead of making it her business to find out what was going on in the unit as a whole she was probably up to her eyes in Prostin gel and looking after women in early stages of labour. Find out if the bleepholder is supernumerary or not.

Thanks for your help spacecadet, it is much appreciated.

MP. Thanks for the link. I'm no Einstein but this seems to be the same old, same old re-branded. I assume these are national pay scales? And therein lies the problem. Unless London Weighting Allowance is significantly increased the capital and surrounding areas cannot hope to attract and retain staff. In addition there seems to be no low-rent accomodation for student nurses or midwives. Unless they live at home I cannot see how anyone could afford to train in or around London.

Bubble

Once you get an EDM up and running, post the details of same. Any mumsnetter who wants to help can then write to their own MP (thus reaching out across the whole of the UK) with the number/details of the EDM and ask them to sign same. If the EDM achieves more than 200 MP signatures there is a better chance of the issue/s then being debated, preferably with the Health Secretary or someone in his/her department, thus raising even more awareness and hopefully some positive action by Government.

butterfly

Bubble - I'm a journo'. Not sure if I can be of help but please CAT me if you want to talk to me in more detail about trying to place a feature.

I could be wrong, but I'm fairly sure someone told me that part of the problem isn't just wages, but also job flexibility. Agency staff have much more flexibility to work part time or child friendly hours which regular staff don't. AND they get paid more, so lots of people switch to agency instead of being employed directly by the nhs.

I had my ds at St.Mary's in Paddington, 4 and 1/2 years ago and they were very very very understaffed at the time. I was left unattended for 12 hours during which time I dialated to 7cm. It then took 5 hours to find an anesthetist and another 5 hours to find the consultant to give me an "emergency" cs because my ds's heart was showing distress. My notes (which I finally got a copy of after a year of phone calls and letters) do not reflect the truth at all. I suspect that my case was not uncommon at the time. I don't know if things have changed.

hi bubble, i was doing a
doing a bit of browsing and came across this. you may already be aware of them. there's a list of all the councillors involved so they could be useful contacts for you

www.kingston.gov.uk/community,_people_and_living/health_scrutiny.htm

Bubble - not sure if anyone's mentioned the national database for stillbirths/perinatal deaths..they collect data on all sorts of things including time of birth so the out-of-hours link should show up.
www.cemach.org.uk/

Bubble - not sure if anyone's mentioned the national database for stillbirths/perinatal deaths..they collect data on all sorts of things including time of birth so the out-of-hours link should show up.
www.cemach.org.uk/

bubble, no the bleep holder is an additional post, at the moment i think they are the modern matrons, i have been on mat leave for awhile but when i went in for some treatment a few weeksago, one of my colleagues told me that the bleep is usually held now by the modern matron who covers about 4-6 wards and whose job it is to oversee thosewards, not work them IYSWIM, i will find out about the maternity unit though it could well be different, i will also try and find out about the other maternity hospitals arrangements.I must admit though that my particular hospital pride themselves on being family friendly, they have an on site creche and operate flexible working hours, i only ever did, twilights and weekends.

Hi Bubble,
Just wanted to say that I will do anything I can to help you.... just ask.
xx

Could you contact your MEP - to see if she could back you as well. They are at the eu parliament until the 2009 eu elections. The mep for the kingston area is www.sarahludfordmep.org.uk/

Bubble, I too am a journo - hatsoff, speaking as a former press officer, you're spot on. Tragically, these are the 'real stories' which as we all know substantiate the figures.

There are quite a lot of - very sympathetic, and honestly not that lazy - journos on MN. I've been trying for years to sell a piece on understaffing etc in midwifery - and others here have done rather better than me (CAT me, honey, and I'll fill you in some more). I am horribly horribly busy over the next couple of weeks (my work fluctuates like nobody's business) but like Willow2 and others, would like to do everything I can.

xxxxxxx

Yes, it's me banging on again. My brain is aching from just my initial forays into the wealth of links and information you've all given me. My question is this. In what order should I do this. Approach a journalist first? Or try to enlist the help of an MP or MEP before doing so. Will I be expected to have stats. and facts to hand or can I just give them my story and leave them to do the legwork. I'm not afraid of hard work but this is above and beyond anything I've done before and I'm not sure where to start.

My main worries are as follows: Baby Jacob dies after a traumatic and botched labour at St George's Hospital = family sues and improvements and safeguards are introduced. Baby Bo dies due to negligence = Improvements and safeguards are introduced. Do you see the pattern? Why weren't improvements and safeguards introduced at Kingston after Jacob's death as a result of delivery at St Georges? Do the hospitals wait for a baby to die before improving care? Will another baby die tonight at another hospital? somewhere?

bubble, i think you should approach local mp;s after the election,in the meantime imo opinion it wouldnt help to speak to journo's, you need to get your story heard. it does seem sad that ababy has to die at at a particular hospital b efore the hospital will act, as you said , they should all be insuring that this doesnt happen again.

bubble I think you could initially start with giving your own story.

Bubble, I would try to speak to the lovely journos who've offered help on this thread in the first instance - then wait and see who your local MP is after the election as it's so close. It can be their first Important Thing to do after they're elected.

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just read your post on the tony blair thread, in your position, I would have been tempted to grab michael howard and yell if you get in what are going to do about the bloody nhs????

Wotcha spacey and HM You Know? I was sorely tempted but we hadn't had the review/enquiry findings at that point and it was so important to us that we heard as much of the truth as the trust's lawyers would allow. I didn't want to jeopardise (sp) what we would hear. Also, and I'm ashamed to admit this I loooked like shit and I was too vain to be caught on camera looking like Waynetta Slob.

Don't !! I'd have been exactly the same - I'd need time to prepare for confronting slimey politicians