Shropshire baby deaths: Jeremy Hunt explains why he ordered investigation

Below are extracts from his letter:

I vividly recall our meeting in June 2015 and the details of the very poor care that your daughter, Kate, and Ms Davies received from the Trust - as well as the completely unacceptable response you received from the local NHS following Kate's tragic death.

NHS Improvement (NHSI) has provided assurance that the Trust has a detailed action plan to address the concerns raised by the independent review of the care that Kate and Ms Davies received. I am advised that this action plan is subject to regular review meetings.

Turning to your wider concerns about maternity care at the Trust and neonatal deaths, it may be helpful if I begin by confirming that the Care Quality Commission (CQC) carried out by an inspection of the Trust, including its maternity service, in December. Whilst the inspection is not a review of the baby deaths that have occurred, the CQC has assured me that these incidents have informed me that these incidents have informed the inspection and were the forefront of the minds of the inspection team.

I also understand that an independent expert midwife has been providing support to the Trust's maternity service and the Head of Midwifery for one day per week to provide objective oversight of serious incidents identification and the associated investigation process.

MORE: Parents want public inquiry held

MORE: Shropshire baby deaths to be investigated

I have noted the serious concerns that you have about the cases of neonatal and maternal deaths, and incidents of harm that you have cited.

The Department would expect there to be an investigation into each of these cases cited in your correspondence. In light of your concerns, NHS England and NHS Improvement will review each case to ascertain whether investigations were carried out and assess the robustness and effectiveness of those investigations. NHS Improvement and NHS England will also ask the Trust to make contact with each of the families concerned to ask them how they wish to be kept informed.

At this stage, therefore, I do not think another separate independent investigation is required. I appreciate this will be a disappointing reply, but I assure you the Government will not accept services that fall short of standards we, and patients, rightly expect.

More widely, you may be interested to know that on 13 December, the CQC published its review of how NHS trusts learn from patient deaths. The report makes a number of findings that point to an urgent need for the NHS to change its approach to learning from deaths; specifically, by adopting a methodology developed by the Royal College of Physicians that systematically reviews all patient deaths in hospitals to seek out the main lessons that the Trust, or in some cases the wider system, needs to learn in order to prevent future recurrence.

You may also wish to know that the Chief Executive and Chair of Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, Simon Wright and Professor Peter Latchford, wrote to the Minister of State for Health, Philip Dunne, on 16 January, inviting us both to visit the Trust's maternity departments to hear about the steps they are taking to improve the service.

I am unfortunately unable to accept that invitation at the present time but I have asked the Trust to keep me updated on the steps it is taking to ensure that services are safe. Once again, may I offer my sincere condolences and apologies for the completely unacceptable care that you and Kate received.