Failing NHS trust at fault for another baby’s death

A FOUR-DAY-OLD baby died after a series of failings at a scandal-hit NHS trust where 15 babies have lost their lives since 2011.

An inquest heard how Archie Powell was treated for a bowel condition while actually suffering from a group B streptococcus infection at the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Hospital in Margate, Kent.

Had he been given antibiotics earlier he would probably have survived, the coroner concluded.

‘Everything’s been taken away from our entire family’, said his mother Dawn Powell who gave birth to the healthy baby boy at the hospital, part of East Kent Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, in February 2019. Within hours, the newborn started intermittently grunting – a sign of possible respiratory problems.

The midwife caring for Archie alerted the on-call doctors, who did not respond. Two further requests were ignored before Archie was finally examined.

However, the inquest heard that the reports of grunting were not acted upon and further delays in transferring Archie to the hospital’s special care baby unit meant he was not given life-saving antibiotics until several hours later.

By that time ‘the die had been cast, it was too late to make a difference to Archie’, Catherine Wood, Kent assistant coroner concluded.

Despite later being transferred to a hospital in London, Archie died aged just four days.

Miss Wood described a number of poor decisions and delays as ‘missed opportunities’. ‘If he had been given antibiotics before noon, on the balance of probabilities, Archie would have survived,’ she said.

Speaking after the inquest, Archie’s parents said they ‘couldn’t forgive’ the errors made by the hospital’s management and doctors.

Mrs Powell said: ‘The only chance we have, not to see him exactly, is to visit his grave every week and to look at photos. That’s all we’ve got left. It’s indescribable.’

The trust, which is at the centre of an independent investigation into maternity care, failed to inform the coroner of Archie’s death at the time. It has since issued an apology to Archie’s parents.

Sarah Shingler, the hospital’s chief nursing officer, said: ‘We recognise we could and should have done things differently for Archie and we apologise unreservedly for failing him and his family.’

Unannounced inspections by the Care Quality Commission found that the Trust did not have enough maternity staff to keep mothers and babies safe.

‘Since his death, we have made a number of changes in the service – to clinical practice and to staff training,’ Miss Shingler added.

‘On-call doctors failed to respond’