Hospital trust boss "apologises unreservedly"

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Wednesday, 20 November 2019 06:40

By Alex Moore - Local Democracy Reporter

The chief executive of Shropshire’s main hospital trust has apologised “unreservedly” after a leaked maternity review described nearly 40 years of failures by doctors, midwives and bosses.

Paula Clark, who took over at the head of the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals NHS Trust in July, said “a lot has already been done to address the issues raised by previous cases”.

The interim status update covering 1979 until February this year singles out the deaths of at least 42 babies and three mothers. It also accuses SaTH of failing to involve families in investigations that were “extremely brief” and “overly defensive”.

The document, produced by Donna Ockenden at the request of NHS Improvement, was released unauthorised to the Press Association news agency.

Ms Ockenden’s review into serious and potentially serious maternity cases was launched by then-Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt in 2017. It was originally intended to examine 23 cases but has grown to include more than 270.

Ms Clark, who leads SaTH on an interim basis following predecessor Simon Wright’s resignation, said: “We have been working, and continue to work, with the independent review into our maternity services.

“On behalf of the trust, I apologise unreservedly to the families who have been affected.

“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. A lot has already been done to address the issues raised by previous cases.

“Our focus is to make our maternity service the safest it can be. We still have further to go but are seeing some positive outcomes from the work we have done to date.

“We have not seen or been made aware of any interim report, and await the findings of Donna Ockenden’s report so that we can work with families, our communities and NHS England/Improvement to understand and apply all of the learning identified.”

The interim report describes examples of inadequate care, including babies suffering brain damage because staff failed to notice signs that labour was going wrong or dying because their heartbeats were not monitored properly.

It also describes how trust staff got newborns’ names wrong, or referred to deceased babies as “it”, and how one grieving family was told to “keep the noise down” or leave the hospital.

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