Maternity services
Tuesday, 27 Nov 2007 09:20
A quarter of women were left alone at a time that worried them during labour or shortly afterwards
Maternity services in the UK have come under fire after a survey found that thousands of women were left alone during labour or shortly after giving birth.
The Healthcare Commission's poll of 26,000 women who gave birth in January and February 2007 revealed that a quarter were left alone at a time that worried them.
This goes against guidelines which state that women should not be left alone except for short periods and suggests that midwives may not be adequately reassuring women when they leave the room.
Nearly a quarter of those surveyed said they would liked to have seen a midwife more often after birth and 22 per cent said their midwife did not discuss feeding their baby with them during pregnancy.
Other concerns raised by the survey include a failure to provide all women with the choice of a home birth and to offer all new mums NHS antenatal classes.
Hospital hygiene and quality of food also came under fire in the poll.
One-fifth of women branded their hospital food as poor and a quarter said they were given too little.
Nearly a fifth of women said the toilets and bathrooms were 'not very clean' or 'not at all clean'; a figure that rose to nearly two-thirds of women in one trust.
Commenting on the findings, Anna Walker, Healthcare Commission chief executive, said overall "women are clearly positive about maternity services".
"But the results do highlight specific areas of concern and wide variations with issues," she added.
"We expect trusts to make full use of their individual results and the opportunity to compare with others. These results show us that many trusts provide very positive services for women. Trusts with less positive results need to learn from the good performers."
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