Shropshire maternity scandal: NHS bosses 'failed to release' hundreds of records to inquiry team
NHS bosses have been accused of failing to release hundreds of records to the inquiry team looking into maternity care at Shropshire’s major hospitals.
A leaked report into maternity care at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, stretching back 40 years, has revealed that dozens of babies and mothers are thought to have died or been left disabled due to poor care at the trust.
It has emerged the NHS carried out a trawl of hospital records looking to identify potential cases at the same time as the independent inquiry, but without informing the inquiry team what it was doing until it had nearly completed the search.
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This NHS trawl identified 326 cases of potential poor care, including where mothers and babies died. But even though the search was completed in 2018, the full findings have still not been handed to the independent inquiry, meaning many families are unaware that the deaths of their children have been implicated in the scandal.
Separately, SaTH has reportedly been criticised for holding on to the records of 75 families who came forward last year following publicity about poor care.
These details have also not been shared with the Ockenden review, which started its work in 2017.
In a letter to families earlier this year, jointly signed by Steve Powis, medical director for NHS England and Improvement, and Donna Ockenden, details of the parallel investigation are confirmed and the trawl is described as an “open book” exercise.
Concern
The Independent has reported that the letter said the review was undertaken in the trust by NHS Improvement and “revealed another 326 cases of potential concern”, adding: “These cases were not known to Donna and the maternity review team prior to mid-May 2019. The numbers currently known to the maternity review are all those that the trust could provide to the ‘open book’ process and we both acknowledge that these numbers are very unlikely to cover all potential cases of concern.”
This review looked at records relating to maternal deaths, stillbirths, neonatal deaths and babies who suffered brain damage since 1998, when the NHS was required to start logging serious incidents formally. It is understood that Rhiannon Davies, whose daughter Kate died following a catalogue of mistakes at the trust in 2009, wrote to NHS England and Improvement demanding records for the 326 cases are handed over to the Ockenden review along with the details of 75 families, which are being held on to by the trust.
A spokesperson for NHS Improvement said: “Donna Ockenden was asked to review 23 cases and as more people came forward, NHS Improvement undertook an assurance process to identify any other cases of potential concern. NHS Improvement’s national medical director, Professor Steve Powis, is working with families and in agreement with the independent chair, has written to the trust asking them to hand over all relevant additional records to the review.”
Paula Clark, interim chief executive at SaTH, said: “Following discussions with NHS England and NHS Improvement it was agreed that the appropriate approach was to fully inform families about the revised terms of reference of the maternity review and to gain their consent to share their records, before releasing their data. NHS England and NHS Improvement have now agreed that we can proceed with informing families. We will now be contacting those families to seek that permission.”
NHS Improvement said Ms Ockenden will now begin informing the families identified in the review.
