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We've published the findings from our annual maternity survey, which captures what people using maternity services in 2022 felt about the care they received while pregnant, during labour and delivery, and once at home in the weeks following the arrival of their baby. Responses were received from 20,927 women and people who had recently given birth.
The survey found that people's experiences of care has deteriorated in the last 5 years, with a notable decline in the number able to get help from staff when they needed it, compared to five years ago.
Positive results were around hospital discharge and mental health support, but key areas for improvement include availability of staff, communications and interactions with staff, and confidence and trust.
Read the full results and press release.
 The latest issue of our Learning from safety incidents series looks at capacity and consent.
These resources briefly describe a critical issue - what happened, what CQC and the provider have done about it, and the steps you can take to avoid it happening in your service.
This issue looks at an NHS trust where we issued two fixed penalty notices for failing to sufficiently assess a patient’s capacity to consent or involve his family or lasting power of attorney before he was given treatment.
 We regulate hyperbaric oxygen therapy if it is provided by or under the supervision of a health care professional under a regulated activity for example treatment for a disease, disorder or injury (TDDI).
This is subject to some specific exceptions, and these are explained further in CQC’s scope of registration.
Providers must register with us for all of the regulated activities they provide.
If a service is providing, for example treatment for a disease, disorder or injury, by using hyperbaric oxygen therapy as a treatment, then the registered provider must make sure and be able to demonstrate that the hyperbaric treatment is safe, effective and appropriate.
 Our Because we all care campaign, which encourages people to share feedback about theirs or their loved one’s experiences of care, has moved its focus to highlighting the experiences of people who are over 55.
We understand a lot of care is being disrupted by winter pressures. Feedback about care services is instrumental in helping to spot safety issues. And with health and social care staff working so hard, positive feedback is just as important. It can help us recognise good practice and it helps keep up staff morale.
We’ve put together a toolkit full of materials for you to support the campaign through social media, newsletters or your website. You can also join the conversation using the #BecauseWeAllCare hashtag.
 The Centre for Perioperative Care (CPOC) has revised and published the second version of the National Safety Standards for Invasive Procedures (NatSSIPs 2). Originally published in 2015, it was commissioned by NHS England and has been written by clinicians from multiple professions and specialties. NatSSIPs2 helps NHS hospitals provide safer care and reduce the number of patient safety incidents by standardising and embedding a set of safety steps. Independent providers are also encouraged to use NatSSIPs 2.
NatSSIPs 2 re-launches the extended World Health Organisation (WHO) checklist and expands the range of procedures to which the safety checks apply. For the first time, all NHS hospitals across the UK will adopt the same National Safety Standards for all invasive procedures. We'll expect providers to either be continuing to meet or to be embedding these revised standards where newly applicable.
For further information see the CPOC press release and the CPOC webpage with supporting resources.
 We know that more needs to be done to truly understand if the culture on mental health wards is safe and caring. Throughout February and March 2023 we'll be trialling a methodology we've developed in partnership with people with lived experience, which aims to observe the culture on high-risk mental health wards. Experts by Experience will also talk to people using these services to get a further understanding of the culture. We'll use the SOFI (Short Observational Framework for Inspection) tool to structure these observations.
These observations will be in line with our updated approach through winter and will be part of a small number of already planned visits to services which are found to be high risk.
Find out more on Citizenlab and share your thoughts.
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