This story was first published in digitalhealth.net
Hunt pledges better action on baby deaths
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has sad that the NHS must learn from its mistakes to cut the number of baby deaths and injuries in childbirth.
Unveiling the new plans, Hunt said that the Healthcare Safety Investigations Branch, set up earlier this year, will be tasked with reviewing cases as he announced aims to halve the overall rate of stillbirths, deaths and brain injuries by 2025 - five years earlier than previously announced.
According to statistics, there are an estimated 1,000 cases a year where babies unexpectedly die or are left with severe brain injury. It is currently the responsibility of local hospitals to investigate cases or for parents to bring clinical negligence cases.
An average of two claims a week are being settled at the moment, with each case costing millions of pounds in lifetime care for these babies.
Hunt said: “We make it really difficult for the NHS to learn what happened and to spread the message about what needs to be done differently next time. People are worried about lawyers, regulation and being fired by their own trust. We have to change a blame culture into a learning culture.”
Addressing staff shortages and heavy workloads, Hunt conceded that there were ‘not enough staff across the whole NHS’ and that would be addressed by a major expansion in training places in the coming years.
Hunt’s announcement coincides with a new report which found that 80 per cent of full-term stillbirths and deaths of babies during childbirth could be prevented if mothers received better care.
According to the MBRRACE-UK coalition study, approximately 180 babies died in 2015 as a result of midwife shortages, mistakes by maternity staff and delivery delays out of a total of 225 full-term stillbirths and deaths during childbirth.
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