Shropshire Star

Parents involved in Shropshire baby deaths review

The team in charge of a review of baby deaths at Shropshire’s major hospitals has been interviewing bereaved parents.

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Rhiannon Davies and Richard Stanton

The review was launched in April last year at the request of Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, after he was contacted by Shropshire parents Rhiannon Davies and Richard Stanton, and Kayleigh and Colin Griffiths.

They asked him to launch a public inquiry into maternity services at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals NHS Trust (SaTH).

Mr Hunt stopped short of ordering a full inquiry, and instead ordered the review of the “quality of the investigations and subsequent reports” relating to a number of baby deaths at the trust.

Mrs Davies said that she was now scheduled to be interviewed as part of the review next week.

A number of parents are understood to have been interviewed in the past month.

Mrs Davies said she hoped the review would be able to present its findings soon.

She said: “We really want it to conclude swiftly. We want it to be robust, this is not us bashing Sath for the sake of it, it is about making sure services are safe for the thousands of people that use them.”

Sath was the subject of a damning report relating to the death of Mrs Davies and Mr Stanton’s daughter Kate, while an inquest ruled that the death of Mr and Mrs Griffiths’ daughter, Pippa, could have been prevented.

As yet there is no indication from NHS Improvement, which is in charge of the review, as to when it may present its findings.

Mr Hunt asked the team to “review the quality of the investigations and subsequent reports into the identified cohort of incidents”, and “identify whether the investigations appropriately addressed the relevant concerns and issues from those incidents”.

The review is being conducted by a team of two midwives, two obstetricians, and two neonatologists.

The findings will be submitted to a review panel with an NHS Improvement-appointed independent chair.

The panel will include an NHS Improvement-appointed director of midwifery from outside the region, a senior quality manager from NHS Improvement, an external independent midwife, an external consultant obstetrician, an external consultant paediatrician/ neonatologist, and an NHS England midwifery representative also from outside the region.

Following the review the panel will provide a report and recommendations of any actions required to Dr Kathy McLean, executive medical director at NHS Improvement.

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