230 families now in probe at baby deaths hospital

MORE than 200 families have raised concerns about a hospital at the centre of a baby death scandal.

The Shrewsbury and Telford NHS trust has confirmed 215 individuals have questioned the care they received.

But a source with knowledge of the investigations said the figure was now approaching 230 and continuing to rise. The cases date back to 1998 but include at least four incidents in the past 12 months.

One involved the death in early December of a 26-year-old woman who developed complications after giving birth at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital.

The trust’s maternity services have been in the spotlight since April 2017 when the former health secretary Jeremy Hunt ordered a review.

It was initially investigating 23 cases of alleged poor care but in recent months it has expanded as dozens more families have come forward.

Some claim their babies died after they were encouraged to have natural births, while others accuse midwives of missing fatal infections in their newborns. Experts say the trust’s maternity services have suffered from years of underinvestment and a chronic shortage of midwives.

A source said the failings could be even worse than those at the Morecambe Bay hospital trust in Cumbria, where 16 babies and three mothers died in 12 years. Rhiannon Davies, whose daughter Kate Stanton- Davies died six hours after her birth in March 2009, told the BBC she was ‘ unsurprised’ at the number of families raising concerns over Shrewsbury and Telford.

She said: ‘ We were in no doubt the review would find further cases … We have known for so long what is underlying all this is a trust that has refused to learn.’

The review into poor care is being overseen by the hospital watchdog NHS Improvement and led by senior independent midwife Donna Ockenden.

About 5,000 women a year give birth in the Shrewsbury and Telford trust’s maternity services in Shropshire, which include a main maternity department and five smaller midwife-led units.

Only last week, NHS Improvement placed the trust in special measures due to concerns about its maternity services, A&E units and general wards.

Dr Kathy McLean, of NHS Improvement, said: ‘ Every possible case has and will be taken into account as part of the investigation.’

A spokesman for the trust said: ‘Very occasionally a birth does not go well. Sometimes that is unavoidable – a baby may have conditions that are untreatable – but on rare occasions something goes wrong which, if things were done differently, there may have been a different outcome.

‘ Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals has committed to making sure we learn from every incident where we know we could have done things better.’