BARNSLEY Hospital bosses have been told the site’s maternity services ‘require improvement’ - after inspectors found that not all the staff were fully trained.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspected the maternity services at the Gawber Road site for the first time as a standalone service in April.
The report, which states the service ‘requires improvement’, was published earlier this month.
It states that the service provided mandatory training in key skills to all staff, but they weren’t all up to date.
“The mandatory training was comprehensive and met the needs of women, birthing people, and staff,” the report added.
“Mandatory training included but was not limited to fire safety, equality and diversity, information governance, infant feeding, and human factors.
“Leaders monitored compliance monthly, and maternity services were on target to meet 100 per cent compliance trajectory by the end of 2023.
“As of March 2023, training compliance was 42 per cent for midwives, 50 per cent for obstetric consultants, and 40 per cent for all other obstetric doctors.
“Not all staff had received training specific for their role on how to recognise and report abuse.
“Training records showed that only 66.6 per cent of the maternity establishment had completed level three safeguarding children training, and only 60.1 per cent had completed safeguarding level three adults training.
“Only 29.1 per cent of obstetric and gynaecological staff had completed level three safeguarding children training, and only 73 per cent of obstetric and gynaecological staff had completed level three safeguarding adults training.
“However, although compliance for safeguarding training was low, it was proactively managed, and leaders had mitigated risks.”
Despite the concerns, there were many aspects of the service that inspectors praised.
These included the service controlling infection risk well, staff feeling respected and the service managing medicines and safety incidents to a good level.
Carolyn Jenkinson, CQC’s deputy director of secondary and specialist healthcare, said: “It was encouraging to see leaders had the necessary skills and abilities to run the service.
“They also understood and managed the priorities and issues the service faced, and staff spoke highly of them.
“However, we identified areas where improvements still needed to be made.”
In a report the CQC said following the inspection it had received 439 feedback forms from women who had recently used maternity services at the hospital.
They said the vast majority had been positive and often contained ‘outstanding’ feedback.
Barnsley Hospital’s chief executive, Richard Jenkins, said: “We thank the CQC for their inspection of our maternity services.
“There is much to be proud of in the report and we were particularly pleased the CQC reported feedback from service users ‘was positive and often outstanding’.
“We will ensure areas highlighted for improvement are addressed.”
