A midwife is being investigated over claims she left expectant mothers alone while they were bleeding.

Jayne Steel faces 54 separate allegations at a Nursing and Midwifery Council hearing later this month.

The charges relate to a period between June 2010 and July 2011, when Mrs Steel was working as a band 5 midwife at Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust.

She was reported over claims she “did not demonstrate the standard of knowledge, skills and abilities required to practise without supervision”.

 

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Among the long list of charges, it is alleged that she left patients unattended while they were haemorrhaging.

It is also claimed that she was unable to distinguish between the heartbeat of a foetus and the heartbeat of its mother.

On another occasion the charges state that when a worried patient asked what was happening, Mrs Steel responded: “You’re having a baby.”

Another allegation is that she failed to immediately clamp and cut the umbilical cord after birth.

The midwife is accused of keeping poor or non-existent notes, of failing to carry out proper examinations and recording that a patient did not suffer from allergies without checking that was the case.

Mrs Steel will appear at the Nursing and Midwifery Council hearing in London next Friday.

If she is found guilty of the charges, she could be struck off from the register.