A midwife is being investigated for the second time over new claims she failed to notice an unborn baby’s heart rate was rapidly dropping.
Tracy Turner, who only had working conditions revoked in December 2012, was last month banned from practising as a midwife for 18 months while the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) investigated further alleged actions.
Louise Hartley, a solicitor for the NMC, said it was necessary to ban her from working while investigations were carried out “on the grounds of public protection”.
She said Mrs Turner’s actions while a woman was in “high-risk” labour in April this year “placed a baby at serious risk of harm”.
It is alleged she first failed to commence a scan on what was deemed a highrisk labour and subsequently ignored the results of the scan – despite being “suspicious”.
The original restrictions placed on her in April 2012 were for “similar” allegations – failing to provide “adequate care to mothers and babies” while she worked at the Conquest Hospital in St Leonards, an NMC spokeswoman said.
It has not confirmed where Mrs Turner was working when the latest allegations were made – the NMC could only confirm they were alleged to have taken place in East Sussex.
The NMC papers from the incident said: “Mrs Turner had taken over the care of a woman on the delivery suite at 10.45am. However, no observations had been documented until 11am.
“At 10.55am the matron had observed from the central monitoring computer that the CTG [scan] was not recording the fetal heart beat and was concerned in view of the meconiun stained liquor.
"It was still not recording at 10.59am so the matron entered the delivery suite and found that the fetal heartbeat had declined.
"At 11.06am the fetal heartbeat had decelerated and this was not recognised by the registrant, who also took no action to prepare the room for delivery and ensure adequate resuscitation arrangements.
“She also submitted that Mrs Turner’s practice was not up to standard because of her failure to recognise the seriousness of the situation and that this incident had occurred only shortly after Mrs Turner had been under a period of supervised practice.”
The NMC said: “The panel is of the viewthat there is a real and significant risk of repetition. Such repetition could place patients and babies at significant risk.”
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