An inspection of Darlington maternity ward has revealed that understaffing has put mothers and babies at "risk" with midwives warning that the unit was "unsafe."

County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust has been informed that services in two maternity wards are 'inadequate'.

The damning report details how understaffing and issues with culture have undermined the efforts of courageous staff.

Read more:  County Durham health chief defends hospital after report

Darlington Memorial Hospital maternity ward was downgraded from good to inadequate after a Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection on March 28/29, 2023.

In a damning assessment, the report stated that "staff did not consistently assess risks to women and birthing people, nor act on them".

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Carolyn Jenkinson, deputy director of secondary and specialist healthcare at the CQC, said: "When we inspected maternity services at County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust, it was concerning to see such a deterioration in the level of care being provided to women, people using the service and their babies.

"Across both maternity services, leaders urgently need to mitigate the negative impact of understaffing.

"We saw that staff had reportedly delayed inductions of labour, including babies categorised as high risk, due to understaffing.

"Midwives had told managers they found the unit was unsafe, but no improvement had been made and staff continued to work late, miss breaks, and take sick leave due to stress which it totally unacceptable.

"It was positive, however, that staff were kind and worked well together, often under pressure, to benefit those in their care."

In a damning analysis of the understaffing at Darlington Memorial Hospital, it was revealed that understaffing put mothers and birthing people at greater risk.

It read: "The trust did not ensure there were enough senior, experienced midwives to ensure safe care and treatment for women, birthing people, and babies on labour wards.

"Staffing levels did not always match the planned numbers putting the safety of women and birthing people and babies at risk."

The CQC inspection also revealed that managers did not always "review incidents in a timely way".

Their criticism of the management went further, stating that local leaders did not always have the skills and abilities to run the service.

When describing the culture at the hospital staff reported to inspectors that they felt "frozen out" when bringing worries to the leadership team.

At the time of the inspection, despite active recruitment, staff felt that "no tangible improvements were made despite issues repeatedly being raised to the leadership team".

However, the report stated that the staff showed courage, compassion and demonstrated real caring for the women, people and babies under their care.

Many of the workers shared their thoughts on how the maternity service could be improved with the inspectors.

In response, Sue Jacques, chief executive of the trust, said: "We are of course very disappointed with the CQC’s rating for our maternity services.

"We take the concerns raised during the inspection extremely seriously and would like to assure all our birthing people and families that we are absolutely committed to providing you with the best care and experience at this special time in your lives.

"We acknowledge that the report makes difficult reading for us, our colleagues and our local communities.

"We recognise the areas for improvement raised by the CQC.

"A lot of work has already taken place to make improvements in the highlighted areas since the inspection in March and we have developed focused action plans to improve safety and efficiency further."

The University Hospital North Durham was also downgraded from "good" to "inadequate".

In their inspection report, understaffing and issues with leadership were cited as reasons for the downgrade.

The overall trust rating is still classed as "good".