For the last 50 years, every maternal and perinatal death has been independantly and carefully scrutinised. This audit is world-class: it has spotted problems, made recommendations, and raised the standard of maternity care for everyone. Not every speciality has this gold standard of examination: were that we did. The BMJ reports this week that the verbosely titled organisation “Mothers and Babies: Reducing the Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries across the UK (MBRRACE-UK)” was meant to be taking over this work. However the National Patient Safety Agency have declared that the transfer is to stop with immediate effect pending a ‘review’. Responding to this is a trustee of Centre for Maternal and Child Enquiries who says that their study of child head injury has also been stopped two thirds of the way through, wasting the money spent so far.
This one almost passed me by. How many other funding cuts with this kind of consequence are being slipped in?
I can’t believe this. The obstetricians were way ahead of everybody else when they started the confidential enquiry into maternal deaths all those years ago. They were auditing before the word audit was invented.
I wondered if anyone had any further information regarding the progress of this audit. I understand the funding for the audit was “suspended” in April 2011, and am aware that the CMACE website now seems defunct. Any information would be greatly appreciated.