WORST NHS MATERNITY SCANDAL EVER
BABIES AND MUMS DIED AMID ‘TOXIC’ CULTURE AT NHS TRUST WARNING SIGNS IGNORED BY RUDE AND COMPLACENT STAFF INQUIRY INTO 23 CASES NOW EXAMINING 270 OVER 40 YEARS
BABIES and mothers died and other infants were left brain-damaged for life in the biggest maternity scandal ever to hit the NHS.
Bereaved parents have struggled for years to receive answers amid a ‘toxic’ culture at Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust, a leaked report says. Rude and complacent staff ignored warning signs in labour, got dead babies’ names wrong and even called one ‘it’.
The report gives interim findings of a government-ordered inquiry that began into 23 cases but is now looking at more than 270 over the past 40 years. These include the deaths of 52 babies and three mothers.
The inquiry was fought for by two mums, Kayleigh Griffiths and Rhiannon Davies, whose daughters both died.
Ms Griffiths lost baby Pippa soon after birth in 2016 when staff ignored signs of a serious infection. And Ms Davies saw newborn Kate die in 2009 after delays with a hospital transfer.
She called yesterday for police to begin investigating hundreds of other unexamined allegations.
‘I don’t trust anyone else other than the police now – there have been too many false promises for too long,’ Ms Davies said. Dr Bill Kirkup, who chaired the 2015 Morecambe Bay inquiry into 11 baby deaths at Furness General Hospital, in Cumbria, said the new scandal was ‘worse, because it
shows we haven’t learned’. ‘I have been told many times Morecambe Bay was a one-off,’ he said. ‘Two clinical organisational failures are not one-offs – they point to an underlying systemic problem that may be latent in other units.’
Maternity expert Donna Ockenden is leading the inquiry ordered in 2017 by the then health secretary Jeremy Hunt into the trust, which runs Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and Telford’s Princess Royal.
Her report says one family mourning the loss of their baby were threatened with removal if they did not ‘keep the noise down’. One dead infant was left to decompose so badly that a family could not say their final goodbyes.
A bereaved dad only received feedback about his baby daughter’s death when he bumped into a hospital employee at Asda. Babies suffered brain damage due to a lack of oxygen or preventable infections and staff failed to act after concerns were raised by parents.
Ms Ockenden noted a reluctance to involve families in serious incident investigations that were ‘substandard’ and ‘extremely brief’, amid a fear of being sued. Parents of affected children were told ‘lessons would be learned’.
But the report says, even today, lessons have not been learned and staff are uncommunicative with families. ‘ No apology will be sufficient or adequate for families who lost loved ones to avoidable deaths, or whose experience of becoming a parent was blighted by poor care and avoidable harm,’ Ms Ockenden said.
‘Many families have described to me how they live on a daily basis with the results of that poor care.’
Ms Davies and husband Richard fought initially for an inquest into Kate’s death.
A subsequent review found systemic failings by former head of midwifery Cathy Smith, and midwives who altered notes after problems had occurred.
Paula Clark, the trust’s interim chief executive, yesterday apologised to the families affected ‘unreservedly’.
‘I would like to reassure all families using our maternity services that we have not been waiting for Donna Ockenden’s final report before working to improve our services,’ she added.