The ongoing investigation into care at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust is now the largest ever review of maternity care in the NHS’ history.
It has recently been revealed that nearly 1,900 incidents are now being reviewed that spread over the last 20 years. This update comes after a separate report stated that the trust had delayed publishing a critical report into maternity care standards for fear of a public and media backlash.
In January 2017 Jeremy Hunt, then the health secretary, ordered an independent inquiry to examine 23 cases of mother and baby deaths and injuries at hospitals in Shropshire. In total, seven baby deaths were found to have been avoidable between September 2014 and May 2016, while two more were never properly investigated. The majority of the avoidable deaths involved a failure to properly monitor foetal heart rates.
In August 2018, an NHS Improvement spokesman said it had agreed “to consider additional historical investigations where women, infants and newborn babies had died or suffered harm in the maternity services provided by Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust.”
In June 2020, it was reported that West Mercia Police was conducting a criminal investigation into maternity care at the Shrewsbury and Telford trust.
It is hoped that the wider inquiry will finally give answers to families who have been affected by the healthcare services provided by the Trust.
Mari Rosser, Head of Medical Negligence, said:
There are a worrying number of themes emerging which are common to both this enquiry and the ongoing Enquiry into the maternity services at Cwm Taf UHB. Perhaps the most concerning of these from the patients’ perspective will be the apparent failure to heed the criticisms made in earlier reports. In both instances, it has also been highlighted that there are issues around the management culture which have allowed unsafe practices to continue unchecked. It is vital that lessons are learnt in both of these ongoing enquiries in the interest of patient safety.
