The biggest hospital in Europe has been ordered to improve security on its maternity ward after inspectors found that mothers 'might leave the unit with the wrong baby', inspectors have warned. Some babies born at The Royal London Hospital had no name tags - which could lead to them going home with the wrong families or even being given medication meant for another baby, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) said.
Inspectors said there was 'lax' practice of checking babies’ name bands, saying that this could create a 'risk that a baby might receive medication intended for another baby, and mother might leave the unit with the wrong baby'



  • The Royal London Hospital was told to quickly improve security measures for its maternity unit 


    Even the head of midwifery at the hospital, in Whitechapel, East London, was unaware of a baby abduction policy, the regulator said. Inspectors found there were not enough midwives on the delivery suite to provide safe cover for all women, and midwives said they had been ordered by managers not to raise concerns about low staff numbers.
    There was a 'mixed' view about how caring staff were - one mother told inspectors she was treated as 'childish' because she was upset that her baby had been taken into special care. Inspectors, who visited the hospital in July this year, said they also observed some 'intra-cultural issues and some bullying behaviour' both between groups of midwives and between midwives and patients. 
    Doctors and midwives on the postnatal ward referred to patients by their bed numbers rather than by name, the CQC said. Last year 4,645 babies were born at The Royal London - the largest standalone acute hospital building in Europe.

    Inspectors found that some babies born at The Royal London Hospital had no name tag


     The CQC has ordered the Barts Health NHS Trust, which runs the hospital, to 'urgently' improve security in maternity after rating the service 'inadequate' The Trust said it had already taken steps to address baby safety concerns - including the introduction of new baby ID tags.
    Overall the hospital was rated 'requires improvement'. Some of the other issues highlighted in the report include:
    ·         'Frequent problems with insufficient availability of sterile equipment in theatres'.
    ·         A two week backlog of outpatient appointments waiting to be booked - some patients waited for over a year for follow up appointments.
    ·         The nutrition and hydration needs of patients were met, though in some busy departments this was enabled by relatives of patients.
    ·         Nine never events were reported at the hospital between August 2015 and July 2016 - these are wholly preventable errors that occur in medical care. These blunders included: a surgeon leaving an object inside a patient after finishing an operation, a wrong tooth extraction, “wrong-site implants” and incorrect medication being given to a patient,
    ·         During the inspection some patients in A&E had to wait 1 hour and 20 minutes for an initial assessment from a medic - even though national guidance suggests the majority of people should be assessed by a clinician within 15 minutes.
    ·         Some medics had to complete mandatory training in their own time or as part of holiday leave.
    Professor Sir Mike Richards, chief inspector of hospitals at the CQC, said: 'We were most concerned about the standard of care around maternity and gynaecology services.
    'Staffing on maternity wards was sometimes inadequately covered - but most worrying of all was the lack of a safe and secure environment for new born babies.
    'At the time of our inspection, we raised this with the Royal London Hospital as a matter for their urgent attention.'


    Last year 4,645 babies were born at The Royal London - the largest standalone acute hospital building in Europe


    A spokeswoman for the Trust said: 'We acted immediately to improve the security of babies at The Royal London Hospital. 'It’s important to stress that these reports are based on observations from five months ago - since then we have subjected our processes and procedures to forensic scrutiny.
    'As a result we’ve introduced new baby ID tags, we’ve reviewed our procedure for locking down the hospital and refreshed our policy. 'We have recirculated our policy to all staff and now test it every single month.
    'Women should be assured our services are safe and we will review our processes regularly to ensure they remain safe.'



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