Maternity Services: Safety

(asked on 11th April 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the number of HSIB maternity investigations that will be (a) undertaken and (b) completed in 2019.


Answered by
Jackie Doyle-Price Portrait
Jackie Doyle-Price
This question was answered on 26th April 2019

As from 1 April 2019, the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB) maternity investigations programme is fully staffed and operational in every healthcare region in England.

The HSIB is estimated to undertake 1,000 investigations in 2019. Work will be undertaken to forecast future estimates for the next three years based on the most recent datasets held by the HSIB.

Since the start of the HSIB maternity investigations programme up until 12 April 2019, a total of 401 investigations have gone live and four investigations have been completed. From 1 April 2019 HSIB will be operating at full capacity and is continuously refining its methodology to improve the turn-around time for completing investigations. As a result, the number of investigations completed are expected to increase in 2019.

The 60-day timeframe applies to the current NHS Serious Incident Framework. In line with the National Health Service Trust Development Authority (Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch) (Additional Investigatory Functions in respect of Maternity Cases) Directions 2018, HSIB is required to complete investigations within 6 months.

The HSIB’s investigations will replace hospital reviews of intrapartum stillbirths only for cases which fall within scope of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists’ Each Baby Counts criteria. This criterion includes all term babies (at least 37 completed weeks of gestation) born following labour who have one of the following outcomes: intrapartum stillbirth or where the baby was thought to be alive at the start of labour but was born with no signs of life.

The HSIB was allocated £10 million in 2018/19 for the maternity investigations programme. A final budget for 2019/20 is to be finalised. Budgets for future years have not been determined.

The National Health Service Trust Development Authority (Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch) (Additional Investigatory Functions in respect of Maternity Cases) Directions 2018 states that “In carrying out the additional investigatory functions, the ‘safe space principle’ as described at paragraph 6(1) of HSIB Directions does not apply.”

Reticulating Splines