Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust ‘has significant amount of work to do’
The health secretary has said failures at an NHS hospital trust led to “unimaginable trauma for so many people” as a new inquiry shed light on the worst maternity scandal in the history of the British health service.
Sajid Javid also apologised after the report found 295 baby deaths or brain damage cases could have been avoided with better care. More than a dozen women also died.
The inquiry - led by maternity expert Donna Ockenden - looked into more than 1,000 incidents at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust over two decades.
It found the trust presided over catastophic failings during this time, which resulted in babies dying, suffering fractured skulls and other injuries, as well as causing harm to mothers.
Ms Ockenden said “failures in care were repeated from one incident to the next” and babies came to harm due to “ineffective monitoring of foetal growth and a culture of reluctance to perform Caesarean sections”.
Two years ago, The Independent revealed more than a dozen women and more than 40 babies died during childbirth at the trust due to a culture that denied women choice.
