Announcements

GPs and women are still ignoring key symptoms of ovarian cancer despite better awareness of the disease, a charity has warned, prompting fears that yet more patients will be diagnosed late and “die needlessly”.

Wales TB outbreak: Hundreds of Llwynhendy contacts yet to be screened

BBC reported that hundreds of people identified as contacts following an outbreak of tuberculosis (TB) in a Carmarthenshire village are yet to attend a screening, health officials have said. Public Health Wales said 31 cases of active TB had been identified since the 2010 outbreak in Llwynhendy.

NHS race review should be cue to finally tackle health inequalities

The creation of the NHS Race and Health Observatory, which has compiled a devastating review of inequalities suffered by people of colour within the health system, came after it emerged that people from different minority ethnic groups were at higher risk of dying from Covid. According to an Office for National Statistics analysis, black people were four times as likely as white people to die from coronavirus early in the pandemic.

Radical action needed to tackle racial health inequality in NHS

Radical action is needed urgently to tackle “overwhelming” minority ethnic health inequalities in the NHS, leading experts have said, after a damning study found the “vast” and “widespread” inequity in every aspect of healthcare it reviewed was harming the health if millions of patients.

Publication of the second report of the Independent Maternity Review

The Review Team has been liaising with NHS England and Improvement and the Department of Health and Social Care and can now confirm that the second report of the Independent Maternity Review of The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust will be published no later than 24 March 2022. 

The second report will build upon the work of the first report to ensure the Local Actions for Learning and Immediate and Essential Actions are strengthened and implemented at the Trust and across the wider maternity system in England. We have already seen some excellent progress and significant amounts of new funding for maternity services across England since the publication of the first report.

Thank you for your patience, an update on the precise date of publication will be provided as soon as possible.

Bereavement Training International awarded endorsement by the Neonatal Nurses Association 

The Review Team and I are pleased that the good work of Bereavement Training International (BTI) has been endorsed by the Neonatal Nurses Association (NNA) – an organisation dedicated to improving outcomes and recognising the contributions made to the lives of mothers and babies by neonatal nurses. 

Neonatal Nurses Association endorsement is awarded following a thorough review process in which the applicant must demonstrate the quality of their training event and its relevance to its members. 

Paula Abramson, Principal of Bereavement Training International, is a key member of the maternity review team. Paula and other team members work hard to support families engaged in the review, alongside SANDS, Child Bereavement UK, and Midlands Partnership. 

We hear from families on a regular basis how well supported they have felt and Bereavement Training International has been a considerable part of this support. It is great to see the work of BTI and its support of families is being recognised. 

We welcome the Government’s announcement to invest a further £3 million for the second phase of a programme to improve maternity care and reduce brain injuries at birth, bringing total investment to over £5 million. On Friday 5 November, the Minister for Patient Safety Maria Caulfield announced the additional funding.

These funds will enable the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG), in partnership with the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) and The Healthcare Improvement Studies Institute at the University of Cambridge (THIS Institute) to develop a national programme of tools and training products that supports maternity services across the country.  

The programme will help achieve the Government’s ambition to halve the rate of brain injury during or soon after birth by 2025.

Maternity staff on the ground, as well as women and their families, will be able to be involved at thiscovery.org/abc in developing training, tools, and products for improving the maternity outcomes of mothers and babies. 

Find out more about how the funding will be used to improve the safety of women and babies here.

Taking Action on Ockenden Poster – Liverpool

Taking Action on Ockenden Poster – University Hospitals Southampton

Taking Action on Ockenden Poster(Part 2) – University Hospitals Southampton

Ockenden Infographic – Royal Devon & Exeter

The Independent’s special webinar

The NHS Maternity Scandal: Inside a crisis

The safety of maternity services has not been far from the news of late, with a growing number of examples of poor care, with recent examples including East Kent Hospitals University Trust and Nottingham University Hospitals Trust.

On Wednesday 11 August, Donna Ockenden, Chair of the Independent Maternity Review at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, spoke as part of a panel for The Independent’s special webinar The NHS Maternity Scandal: Inside a crisis. This panel was chaired by Shaun Lintern and the other panelists included: Dr Eddie Morris, president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and James Titcombe, a patient safety campaigner and bereaved father.

You can see the article in The Independent and a recording of the webinar here. The link will take you to an article where you can register to watch the webinar free of charge.

Police expanding Shropshire maternity scandal investigation team

Read more