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.

bubble99, I'm not in London but can I just say that by sharing your sad story on here, you have already made a massive difference to people.

Personally, at the weekend, I had a scare with my unborn baby (I fell and there was a panic that the placenta was damaged and I would have to be delivered urgently). I was monitored and felt that I didn't understand what the CTG was showing. Before reading your story, I would have let it go and hoped that the docs were on top of it but I remembered what you said and pushed and pushed until I got an answer. Luckily everything was fine but it saved me a lot of worry.

Thank you xxx

Hello All

I'm now waiting for a copy of the report/summary of findings for our enquiry. There were a list of questions that we had prepared for the enquiry. Some were answered and others not. The trust is now finding answers to the remaining questions and these will be included in the written report. The MW who admitted us to the post natal ward when we first arrived, for example, and did little else until it was too late was a Bank Nurse. At the enquiry I asked if MW's working on a post natal ward were up to date with antenatal and delivery skills. The Head of Midwifery assured us that her MW's did three month rotations between all departments, I wanted to know if the same was true for bank or agency MW's. In the meantime I have emailed CEMACH for details of perinatal deaths and, most importantly, the times they occurred. Have joined Yahoo MW's group. I will definately CAT some of our msnet journos once I have a copy of the report in my hands. I want to know how the process of 'going public' works. One of the tactics used by 'Attack Dog Reid' is to accuse anyone who dares to point out faults in the NHS of attempting to denigrate and 'dis' NHS staff. I am determined that any piece written by a journalist as a result of our tradgedy does not level personal charges against any individual. It is the system that stinks. The system that can take away essential clinical posts, such as the bleep holder and use the money for yet more layers of 9-5 managers. We were effectively told that it is not safe for a woman pregnant with twins to be admitted for induction of labour after 5pm. This is wrong.

I once came across peer-reviewed published work that, IIRC, looked at instances of birth complications / neonatal death in weekend vs. week-day scenarios and also by day part (ie evening vs. day)... I think it was when I was exploring research surround home birthing vs. hospital birthing. Possibly at Assoc. of Radical Midwives.

I'm a journalist, sort of on maternity leave. Just pitching in to say, yes, good on you, this needs saying, and that I know both Motherinferior and Willow and know they are both very - indeed pathologically (!) - ethical and decent people.
I think any newspaper would jump at this story - thinking Standard/Times/Telegraph/Guardian.
I am in awe of your strength.

Hi aloha Glad to hear your DD is sleeping through. It's the last glass of wine that does it don't ya think? Joke, BTW. Ooh, I'm going to get burned for that one.

The Guardian recently ran a few features on maternity care and featured Jacob's story, a baby who was severely brain damaged after delivery at St George's Tooting. I've spoken to Jacob's father who is himself a journalist. He recommended approaching The Guardian with our story. I think, however, that the story will of course be sensationalised but have more impact if it is something like "The Mail" as it has a high female readership, and women force change particularly when it is about something as sacred as childbirth. I did a recent playground strawpoll asking mothers at school to 'fess up about their secret Daily Mail addictions and lots said that they buy it alongside their broadsheet and hide it till they get home. As far as guilty secrets go it's right up there with 'Heat'. What do you think Aloha?

aloha, sorry to taint your post by mentioning The Moan/Mail alongside it

Bubble - I CAT you yesterday - the journalist I mentioned from the guardian didn't think they'd be interested as they have done quite a lot in this vein recently. She does write for other publications though and would be happy to talk to you. If you CAT me I can give you her email address.

bubble i have to confess that i have been known to buy the mail as i do like to read the femail section.

Hi bubble. I don't do anything as useful as journalism myself, but my brother has some contacts in journalism. He will be returning to Berlin shortly (he's been in Afghanistan for the last 18 months). So if by any chance you want journalism contacts there (Germany I mean, not Afghanistan) please let me know.

I would never buy the Mail myself but I do know lots of women who do e.g. I think it is the paper of choice for most of the secretaries where I work.

bubble i am a journo too (radio though) and despair at the innaccuracy at some of the health stuff i read in papers like the Mail. imo the Guardian or similar would handle it in a much better way (they ran the turkey twizzlers a month before the Jamie Oliver series, and got Bernard Matthews to make changes straight away). the person who co-wrote that is a friend, so CAT me if you want to get in touch with her. xxxx

im going to possibly get my ass whooped here but where I work(or not at the mo as the case may be) all clinical staff have to do regular training updates, but in my experience, bank nurses(dont know about midwives) only have to do training updates, such as, manual handling, trust video(boring), resucitation, and other basic clinical updates, they do not have to do rotations etc, bank midwives do not have to rotationsetc either. I had an experience once where we had an agency nurse, who said and I quote" im not allowed to do ivs, cos my trainings not up to date" honestly!!!and they had sent her to a surgical ward!!!!!!! also i do feel that hcas are left to do a lot of work originally carried by qualified nurses as they have to spend so much time doing papaerwork, nursing assistants are not allowed to , take blood pressures until hca,s and hcas are not allowed to remove canulas etc until hca level 3, yet all catogory of these nursing staff are routinely doing things they are not qualified to do, scary isnt it?

am so embarressed that i have bought the mail, but it was when i was preg, and bored!

just wanted to let you know that, the bleep holder based in the maternity hospital adjoining where i work is supernumarry, i have asked why and be told, its because, on delivery and in the wards, they always have a g grade midwife on duty and are well staffed on the ante-natal and post natal wards, on delivery, they usually have 6-7 members of staff and always at least one doctor 24/7, they have bleep holders in the community who arent supernumary up un til 5pm weekdays then afyter that you have to contact the hospital. I am shocked as the hospital i work in which adjoin the mat hospital have seperate bleep holders, and i must confess that when i went into have ds2 i found the place to be horrifically understaffed, they have only one open joint ante-natal and post natal ward, one is closed due to..staffing! thats whY i DIDNT havedd2 at that hospital.

Wouldn't go to the Mail - their editorial agenda is very dubious, and as a result they aren't really taken seriously (i.e. Labour press officers tend to term it the Kilroy paper...).

Guardian is a strong one. Also the Today programme could be an option if you're prepared to be blunt early in the am. Woman's Hour too? I can dig out contacts there when back in the office tomorrow, and help you with the pitch to them. CAT me if any use.

Also what about something like This Morning? Sounds wierd but they do have a campaigning agenda on childcare issues so? might be worth a shot.

Bubble, I feel a bit useless because I'm not really doing anything to help you at the minute.
I don't have any useful contacts (I'm a teacher) and I don't really know what I can do... but if you have a Chemistry question I could maybe help you...
best I can do for now is bump you up!

bump

This would have made an amazing pre-election story - health is a huge issue. This is the kind of story the Standard might well be interested in. They ran Thomcat's story after I wrote it originally for Eve magazine and didn't sensationalise or anything. I have contacts at the Mail too - sorry everyone!
It has the London angle that would work for the Standard.

If you want to cat me, do. I would be happy to help. Don't want to be pushy.

Wotcha

Meant to check in earlier but I've just had a RL phone chat with jangus ahead of tomorrows enquiry meeting. Can't get my head around where she's at. Somewhere dark and painful, that's for sure.

I've had so much to do today. We have taken on a full-on professional chef at the nursery which is great but he needs to have his artistic sensibilities acknowledged/stroked every now and then. Still, could be worse, we could have a tired old thing bemoaning the lack of turkey twizzlers to stick in the oven.

My mate hub has suggested the domain name 'Strongbo' for my tentative forays into the world of campaigning. Just need to work on the content now. I looked at Elijah earlier and realised that I haven't got to know him in his own right. He's been tinged with an air of tragedy so far, and that's not fair is it?

bubble, I don't know if this has been suggested before, or if you have tried it anyway, but what about contacting Cherie? Or Ruth Kelly? They are both conscientious mothers in positions of authority and I'm sure they would both be horrified to hear what happened to you and jangus.

You are so sensible and strong and Elijah will assume his own personality in the next few months, then he will be his own person, but with the knowledge for the grown ups that he was part of a package.

Personally I think you need to grieve Bo and get answers before you can totally focus on Elijah, not that you are neglecting him, but just clearing the decks for his future.

God that doesn't make much sense, but I will post it anyway , because it was well meant.

Hi Janh

Cherie might be worth a try. Jangus and I both lost our babies on horrendously understaffed wards. It's got to be sorted and soon. Even the NHS number crunchers will start to realise that saving on clinical salaries does not balance the (potential) cost of damages paid in lawsuits.

Footle will forgive.

He will know one day what you did for his brother whom he used to fool around with in the bubble.

Give him a shnuggle from all of us though just to be extra sure.

'strongbo' is a fab campaign name. The man's a flippin' genius.

I think maybe 'StrongBo' is better typographically though.

Poor jangus. Maybe once she has had her discussion she will have more of a feel for what happened / what needs to happen ?

Hope your chef does Macaroni cheese or I'm never gonna visit. And boiled cabbage.

hi bubble, been looking for you.
you have really helped me tonight, I am feeling a bit more positive about tomorrow.
It makes a difference to talk to someone who really understands.
Weird, but I didn't even feel guilty about having the odd wee giggle because we are both in the same place and we both know that it is not meant to be disrepectful.
thanks
xxj