Bosses face questions over scandal

Health chiefs have faced further questions about the baby deaths scandal at a hospitals trust which is the subject of two independent inquiries.

A cross-party committee of county councillors quizzed bosses of the East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust last week over what had gone wrong and what was being done to address the failings.

The trust is the subject of two as yet unpublished investigations the Department of Health ordered after revelations about the deaths of as many as 15 babies, including Harry Richford and Archie Batten.

Liz Shutler, director of strategic development, said the trust had recognised as early as 2015 that the quality of maternity care needed to improve and “was not what it should have been”.

Despite implementing measures, the quality of care did not improve as quickly as the trust needed it to or on the scale that was required.

She offered another apology, saying that “even one death that could have been prevented was one death too many”.

The health overview and scrutiny committee was told that an independent board had been set up to review how the trust had responded to the earlier - also critical - report in 2015 identifying shortcomings.

Mrs Shutler said the trust had recently recruited six specialist midwifery posts and was committed to taking seriously the outcomes and recommendations.

But there were questions raised about how the trust would be able to demonstrate that services had improved.

The trust’s Liz Shutler spoke at the meeting