The mother of a baby girl who died in hospital 23 minutes after being born has said she was “failed in the most cruel way” by an NHS Trust that has admitted failings in their care.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) prosecuted the Nottingham University Hospitals NHS trust after it admitted that its maternity services had not provided safe care and treatment to mother, Sarah Andrews, and her baby, Wynter Andrews.
Wynter died 23 minutes after she was born by caesarian section in September 2019 at the trust’s Queens Medical Centre in Nottingham. An inquest in 2020 found she died from hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy – a loss of oxygen flow to the brain – after her umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck and leg, which could have been prevented had staff delivered her earlier.
Her parents, Gary and Sarah Andrews, said in a statement: “Our cherished daughter, Wynter, was born on the 15 September 2019, but tragically died just 23 minutes after birth. As first-time parents all we ever wanted was to bring our precious baby home.
“Multiple investigations and the conclusions of the coroner revealed that we were failed in the most cruel way by a trust board that has allowed the maternity services at the hospital to become fundamentally unsafe. Failures that were described in court today as ‘serious and sustained’.”
They said that although the trust would be fined, no medical professionals or managers were professionally disciplined for their “failures of care”, with senior leaders having moved onto “high paying roles” at other trusts.
“Until there is proper accountability and learning from mistakes, babies and mothers will continue to be harmed and families will continue to have their hearts broken,” they said, adding that they hoped for closer scrutiny from the CQC in future.
The trust pleaded guilty in Nottingham magistrate’s court on Wednesday to two charges of failures of care to Sarah and Wynter respectively. The CQC accused it of breaching the Health and Social Care Act 2008 in the regulator’s second-ever prosecution against an NHS maternity unit. The trust will be sentenced on 27 January.
The trust admitted there had not been processes in place to enable staff to manage all risks to patients’ health and wellbeing, which the CQC said exposed them to “a significant risk of avoidable harm”.
The CQC said it has been closely monitoring the trust’s maternity unit, and accepts that the trust has worked to address its failings.
Maternity services at Nottingham University hospitals trust have been rated inadequate by the CQC since 2020 after a series of unannounced inspections prompted by comments from a coroner criticising the “unsafe culture”.
The CQC’s report found that staff were chronically overworked and unable to “raise concerns without fear”. The regulator also highlighted repeated failures of staff to use cardiotocography (CTG) equipment, which helps to monitor a baby’s heart rate during labour.
A review of the trust’s maternity units by midwife Donna Ockenden started in September “in light of significant concerns raised regarding the quality and safety of maternity services” raised by families.
