Decision Report 201603943

Summary

Mrs C was referred to St John's Hospital for her first maternity appointment. Mrs C complained that during her pregnancy, community midwives failed to provide her with a reasonable level of care and that she was not given antenatal blood screening as she said she required. Mrs C's baby was stillborn.

We took independent advice from a specialist in haemostatis and thrombosis and from a midwife. We found that as Mrs C had a family history of deep veinous thrombosis, she was correctly referred to a specialist clinic for tests. These tests showed no evidence of personal risk for Mrs C and as such no further blood testing was required. However, it was agreed to offer her blood thinning medication after the baby's birth. While Mrs C believed that if further blood screening tests had been carried out she may not have lost her baby, we found no evidence of this. We found that the midwifery care and treatment given to Mrs C had been of a reasonable standard. We therefore did not uphold these aspects of Mrs C's complaint.

Mrs C said that her placenta was lost when it was sent for testing. We found that when the placenta was sent to the laboratory, it was not accompanied by the appropriate paperwork and for this reason it was destroyed. We upheld this element of Mrs C's complaint. The board apologised for this and put new procedures in place to prevent the same happening again.