01 November 2022
During an inspection looking at part of the service
The Barkantine Birth Centre was inspected as part of the national maternity inspection programme on 16 and 17 August 2022. The programme aims to give an up-to-date view of hospital maternity care across the country and help us understand what is working well to support learning and improvement at a local and national level.
Following this inspection maternity services at this location were rated as inadequate, and a warning notice was served under Section 29A of the Health and Social Care Act 2008. The report required the location to improve the delivery of care to comply with regulations 12 (Safe Care and Treatment) and 17 (Good governance). The Barkantine Birth Centre closed voluntarily to appointments and births on 17 August 2022 to address staffing and safety concerns, and re-opened in early November 2022 for antenatal and postnatal appointments.
This inspection was delivered to assess the location's progress in improving care in relation to the enforcement action taken, particularly around immediate risks to patients.
On inspection we found:
- The service had improved policies and procedures on emergency transfers and evacuation from birth pools.
- The service had carried out scenario based training for staff
- There was improved mandatory training completion for clinical staff as well as maternity specific training
- Access to emergency equipment and equipment checks had improved
- There was an enhanced governance structure in place to review performance and the delivery of care
- Service and divisional managers had improved oversight of the Barkantine Birth Centre
This inspection report will not consider changes to the current ratings for the Barkantine Birth Centre. Further inspection will be required in relation to the above enforcement action to address risks that could not be sufficiently evaluated at the time of this inspection. These risks include improving the quality of risk assessments for women and babies, improving monitoring of early warning scores, and secure management of controlled medicines.