independent review<\/a>, which were published earlier this week, revealed repeated failures in the quality of maternity care and governance.<\/p>\nWhile many women had a \u201cmostly positive experience\u201d, others described a \u201cconsiderably poor or traumatic experience\u201d, said the review report.<\/p>\n
Concerns raised by the review included a lack of compassion by staff, women feeling ignored and a failure to listen by staff.<\/p>\n
The review also highlighted \u201clanguage barriers and a lack of cultural awareness\u201d affecting people from different backgrounds.<\/p>\n
Other issues included low and inconsistent staffing levels, poor compliance with mandatory training and a loss of experienced staff, leaving a workforce heavily reliant on newly qualified midwives despite increasing demand for clinical expertise.<\/p>\n
In response, the Welsh Government announced that it had accepted all 11 recommendations made in the independent review.<\/p>\n
These included establishing a single point of access for maternity triage, delivering compassionate and trauma-informed care, improving governance processes and implementing a maternity early warning score (MEWS).<\/p>\n
Mr Miles said: \u201cI want to offer a full and unreserved apology on behalf of the Welsh Government to all the women and families who have not received the service or care they deserved and expected from Swansea Bay University Health Board.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe experiences highlighted today, those reflected in the recent Llais report and those I heard when I met families last month must never happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jan Williams, chair of the Swansea Bay University Health Board, said the report identified \u201ca range of failings and experiences that are unacceptable and distressing\u201d.<\/p>\n
She added: \u201cWe apologise unreservedly to the women and their families who have suffered as a result.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe acknowledge the traumatic and life changing experiences some will have experienced as a result of harm or loss and offer our heartfelt condolences.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Julie Richards, director for Wales at the Royal College of Midwives (RCM), said the review findings \u201cclearly show systematic issues such as chronic understaffing, not listening to women and their families and the board not listening to its own staff\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo truly address the challenges, there needs to be substantial investment in maternity services and a commitment to building a midwifery workforce that ensures we have enough staff to meet the demands being placed on maternity services in Wales,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo make positive long-lasting change a reality we must all work together and learn from the mistakes that have been made and bravely shared by the women and their families.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms Richards added that the RCM would continue to encourage \u201csharing of successes and good practice\u201d between health boards to improve safety.<\/p>\n
\u201cEqually, the Welsh Government must continue to listen to the lived experience of the women using our maternity services and the staff that work in them, because without truly listening and acting upon their concerns we won\u2019t see the change that we so desperately need,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
The move in Wales comes after a national investigation was recently launched into NHS maternity services in England, in the wake of a series of high profile failures in care.<\/p>\n
The investigation, announced in June, is set to look at up to 10 of the worst performing maternity services across the country, to give affected families answers as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A national assessment of all maternity and neonatal services in Wales will begin this month, following a damning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5010],"tags":[748,4884,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-267128","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wales","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114864083854153432","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}