Kingston Hospital

⚠ The service provided mandatory training in key skills to all staff, but staff were not uptodate with training updates. The summary maternity workforce training database for October 2022 showed all 14 maternity mandatory training modules were below 75% compliance against a trust target of 90%.

⚠ Staff did not always complete regular skills and drills training. For example, the last birth pool evacuation training on the birth centre was in November 2019 and the trust did not provide evidence of a recent skills training to test the security of newborn infant’s policy.

⚠ The maternity unit was not fully secure. While there was a monitored buzzer entry system to the maternity unit. People then had access to the whole of the first-floor maternity unit which included unrestricted access to central delivery suite, the birth centre and maternity triage. It was possible to exit …

⚠ Staff did not always complete daily safety checks of specialist equipment. For example, adult resuscitation equipment outside maternity theatres was not checked on several dates including the day of inspection. On day assessment unit the defibrillator had not been checked.

⚠ Staffing in maternity triage was not sufficient to fully implement an evidence-based, standardised risk-assessment tool for triage effectively as maternity triage was staff by only 1 midwife and there was no dedicated medical cover. Shortages of medical staff on maternity triage and day assessment unit impacted negatively on the safety …

⚠ Midwives did not always receive safeguarding supervision on a quarterly basis. This was due to lack of trained staff to deliver safeguarding supervision as only 1 midwife was a trained supervisor and they worked 0.5 WTE.