Hunt orders investigation of trust following baby deaths

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has ordered an investigation of Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust after it was revealed at least seven babies died on occasions which could have been avoidable.

Hunt has asked NHS England and NHS Improvement to review a series of deaths and other incidents which have taken place at the trust, to ensure they were properly investigated.

According to a report by the BBC there has been at least nine suspicious deaths at the trust between September 2014 and May 2016. Seven of the deaths were avoidable, according to inquests by the local coroner and legal action against the trust.

In many of the cases, a failure to properly monitor the baby’s heart rate was contributory factor in the deaths. The monitor, or cardiotocograph (CTG), gives an indication of how the foetal heart rate is responding to the stress caused by the mother's contractions during labour.

However, sometimes errors are still made and the technology mistakes the mother's heart-rate for that of the child.

Cathy Warwick, chief executive of the Royal College of Midwives, explained: “Mistakes are uncommon but they do happen. It is something we have to avoid. Unfortunately, we are still seeing mistakes being made, though we have been training midwives and doctors in this technique for a very long time."

Dr Edwin Borman, medical director at the Shrewsbury and Telford Trust, told BBC News: ”When I look at the perinatal mortality rate at our trust compared to the rest of the NHS, we are at an equivalent level to the rest of the country.

"In the case of foetal heart rate monitoring, we have identified a number of cases where learning has not been fully implemented. We've put systems in place to make improvements.

"Nationally there has been an initiative called Saving Babies' Lives that recognises that throughout the NHS this is a challenge."

The Department of Health said the investigation would examine ‘disclosures that in a number of tragic cases standards of care fell far below those that parents would expect’.