The West Suffolk NHS Trust has been criticised by hospital inspectors after falling from outstanding two years ago to now requiring improvement overall.
Inspectors say they found significant concerns and risks to patients within the maternity and midwifery service, which included the failure to track and score observations of some women and new-born babies in order to identify deterioration.
The Care Quality Commission say they raised these concerns with the trust immediately following the inspection and a warning notice was issued stating that improvements must be made by 31 January 2020.
The Doctors’ Association UK raised the alarm after our members brought to our attention that doctors were being finger-printed by West Suffolk in an effort to identify an anonymous whistleblower. The story was first broken by The Guardian and DAUK in December.
Speaking to ITV news DAUK’s Learn Bot Blame lead Dr Jenny Vaughan said: “The only way you can make patients safer is by providing a very open environment…if you don’t get that you get a cover up culture..you get bullying…Doctors that approached DAUK said they felt persecuted.” Her comments come after “witch hunt for a whistleblower”
For the full news reel: https://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2020-01-30/west-suffolk-hospital-requires-improvement/
