Hospital admits newborn’s death was avoidable
Trust pleads guilty after Harry’s parents’ campaign
A SCANDAL- HIT NHS trust pleaded guilty yesterday to failures over the ‘wholly avoidable’ death of a baby boy.
In the first case of its kind, East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust admitted to giving Harry Richford unsafe treatment and care – causing him ‘avoidable harm’.
Harry died a week after his chaotic birth which involved a catalogue of errors by medical staff at Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Hospital ( QEQM), in Margate, in November 2017.
The landmark prosecution comes after his parents Sarah and Tom Richford, who are both teachers, spent years fighting for answers. And it follows a Daily Mail investigation which last year exposed the trust’s failure to report 100 out of 124 baby deaths to the coroner over seven years, even though many were sudden and unexplained.
Harry’s parents welcomed the guilty plea yesterday, saying it delivered ‘some level of justice’ and hopefully meant other babies would not suffer the same fate.
Mrs Richford, 32, said: ‘We’ve got some level of justice that means that although Harry’s life was short, hopefully it’s made a difference and that other babies won’t die.
‘If somebody had done this before Harry
‘Some level of justice’
was born he may be alive today.’ Mr Richford added that they have had to put their lives on hold to fight for justice.
He said: ‘It’s been really difficult, we have had to investigate this ourselves. We really should be allowed to just get on as grieving parents and move on with our lives.
‘But instead our lives have been on pause for three-and-a-half years while we try to get some justice and accountability so we know that Harry’s life albeit just seven days of it... has got a long lasting impact.’
Harry is one of up to 15 potentially avoidable baby deaths to have occurred at the trust – which is the subject of an independent inquiry – in the last seven years.
East Kent pleaded guilty at Folkestone Magistrates’ Court yesterday to failing to provide safe care and treatment to Harry and his mother under the Health and Social Care Act 2008.
District Judge Justin Barron told the Richfords that he had the power to order an unlimited fine against the trust at sentencing in June.
It is the first time the Care Quality Commission has prosecuted an NHS trust for poor clinical care.
The health watchdog started a criminal investigation in 2019 and the trust was charged with exposing Harry and his mother to ‘avoidable harm’.
His parents said they fear that the serious failings would have been ‘ brushed under a carpet’ if they had not campaigned for answers. Mr Richford added: ‘ At every hurdle it did seem that the hospital were trying to avoid scrutiny. They didn’t want to lose out on their reputation.’
After a ‘textbook’ pregnancy, the first time mother had an emergency caesarean section which was performed too late and by an inexperienced locum who had not been fully assessed by the trust.
Harry was born silent and limp and there was another delay in resuscitating him. He died seven days later from irreversible brain damage. East Kent initially refused to refer Harry’s death to the coroner claiming it was ‘expected’ but his grandfather, Derek Richford, did so in March 2018 as he feared a cover-up.
The resulting three-week inquest last January exposed serious failings at the trust and ruled that Harry’s death was ‘wholly avoidable’ and amounted to ‘neglect’.
Other grieving families subsequently came forward with their own potentially avoidable tragedies sparking the inquiry into the standard of care provided by maternity services at the trust.
The probe – which is said to have involved 200 families claiming they received poor care at East Kent – is being overseen by Dr Bill Kirkup who led a damning report into the maternity scandal at Morecambe Bay.
Mr Richford said East Kent was finally being made to face up to its failings and added: ‘They’re now beginning to admit their errors and mistakes and hopefully that will continue. The whole time you admit and own your mistakes you’ll hopefully learn from them but the whole time you’re brushing them under the carpet then the same mistakes will happen again and again.’
East Kent Hospitals boss Susan Acott said: ‘We are deeply sorry that we failed Harry, Sarah and the Richford family and apologise unreservedly for our failures in their care. We have already made significant changes following Harry’s death and we will... do everything we can to learn from this tragedy.’
The Richfords said that since the inquest in January last year, the number of neonatal deaths at the trust had dropped by more than half. Mrs Richford said she hopes ‘Harry’s life has made a difference’.