According to the PR Newswire, a recent report by Fentons Solicitors has suggested that numerous legal cases involving maternity issues, birth injuries and infant deaths could be down to managers concentrating on budgets rather than their patients.
Medical negligence solicitor Janet Johnson, who works for Fentons Solicitors LLP, said that the first report of its kind by The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) showed the enormous disparity in the quality of care patients received across the country. The report, which analysed the performance of maternity units in England during 2011/12, found that rates of inductions, emergency caesareans and assisted deliveries were twice as high in some hospitals as others.
"This does not come as any surprise to us," said Janet, who for more than 15 years has specialised in pursuing cases relating to birth injuries, gynaecology and obstetrics. "Different Trusts across the country set different targets for the number of caesarean sections they allow their obstetricians to perform," she said. "The straightforward rationale is that it is significantly cheaper if a woman is able to deliver naturally. A c-section requires a larger number of specialist staff, an operating theatre, and simply costs more to perform. Therefore some of those setting and monitoring budgets will try to manage and limit the practice."
The new report was based on research carried out with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. It centred around 11 'indicators' of the quality of maternity care, using data collected by hospitals, including the number of induced labours, emergency caesareans after induction, deliveries involving instruments such as forceps, severe tears during labour and emergency readmissions of mothers after delivery.
Dr David Richmond, vice president of the RCOG concluded that, according to the report, not all women are receiving the best level of care. He told the BBC: "The initial set of indicators suggests wide variation in both practice and outcomes between maternity units which is a source of concern for the specialty as we cannot be sure that every woman is getting the best possible care."
Janet Johnson said that although the disparity was clearly a cause for concern, there could be other reasons that some frontline staff appeared to be not giving the best possible care. "We have seen an increasing number of maternity-related medical negligence cases from across the country, where the common theme is a lack of numbers of midwives," she said.