National State of Patient Safety Report raises concerns about maternity care
The report by Imperial College London highlights concerns about the safety of maternity services, the culture of safety in the workforce, and variations in care and outcomes. It recommends better data to monitor people’s safety while they experience delays in their care.
Imperial conducted a poll of the public and health and care workers. It found that waits for urgent care was the area of greatest concern. Researchers argued that better high-quality data at the local and national level should be colllected and used in a “problem sensing” way that enables early detection of patient safety issues.
Key figures
- Two out of three NHS staff feel unable to carry out their jobs fully due to workforce shortages
- In 2023, the UK ranked 21st out of 38 OECD countries for patient safety
- In 2023, the number of deaths that could have been avoided if the UK matched the top 10% of OECD countries was 13,495 deaths
- Rates of hospital-acquired C. difficile have increased by 54% since 2023
- 65% of maternity units in England were rated as "inadequate" or "requires improvement" for safety by the Care Quality Commission (CQC)
- Maternal deaths increased by 52% (from 8.8 to 13.4 per 100,000 maternities between the 2017-2019 and 2020-2022 periods)
Recommendations
Imperial researchers recommended these imporovements:
- Local NHS organisations must be supported to adopt evidence-based interventions to tackle the most common safety problems causing significant harm to patients.
- National organisations must agree on a focused set of patient safety improvement priorities for the system to rally around.
