Karen Reynolds, a Derby clinical negligence lawyer, says issues identified at this week’s landmark Ockenden report on widespread Shropshire maternity issues were “depressingly familiar” to those she sees in Derbyshire. Ms. Reynolds, a clinical negligence lawyer at Freeths in Derby, said she was currently investigating 11 obstetric cases against Derby University Hospitals and the Burton NHS Foundation Trust (UHDB). Read more Derbyshire health stories This is especially true of the Royal Derby Hospital and Queen’s Hospital in Burton. She says she and her team are also investigating hospital cases in Stoke, Chesterfield and Nottingham. The trust’s maternity services were rated Good in a CQC review in 2019. The current UHDB stillbirth rate is 3.05 per 1,000 live births, below the national average of 4.2 per 1,000. But Ms Reynolds told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “Over the last 20 years I have been investigating many obstetric allegations against Royal Derby and Burton Hospitals. “The issues in my Ockenden Report are depressingly familiar. “I had allegations of failure to properly monitor pregnancies and births that resulted in stillbirths and maternal and infant harm. “Often mothers were not listened to when they expressed their concern and were not given choices when it came to management. “It is heartbreaking to read the report and realize that so little has changed over the years.” Board documents published by the Derby Trust in March showed that from January 2021 to January 2022, 42 new maternity claims were filed against the organization, 11 of which were raised only in March 2021. The papers state that two additional legal claims for maternity services were settled last year. Last year, the trust’s maternity ward also had 27 patient safety reviews, 17 patient safety case investigations and 52 cases of perinatal mortality review tools (related to stillbirths and infant deaths). Ms Reynolds described the figures as “worrying”. The Ockenden Report, published Wednesday (March 30th), analyzed the maternal failures of nearly 1,500 families treated by the Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust over 20 years. She found widespread miscarriages and a reluctance to perform cesarean deliveries, which resulted in babies being stillborn, dying shortly after birth, or having suffered severe brain damage. The mothers were also left with lifelong conditions as a result of their care and treatment. From 2000 to 2019, the study found 200 cases of infant death or brain damage that could have been avoided as a result of poor maternal care, including 131 stillbirths, 70 neonatal deaths and 84 cases of brain damage. A key issue was that trust “failed to explore, learn and make significant changes to improve patient safety.” Another is that he failed to listen to the families and even tried to put the responsibility on the families themselves. The review advises that pregnant mothers should be able to make informed choices about their pregnancy and birth and that this should be fully documented. Cathy Winfield, Executive Director of Nursing at UHDB, said: “Our dedicated maternity staff goes beyond caring for our patients and making the birth experience as safe as possible. “But it is equally important to be open and transparent whenever we do things wrong, and to involve women and their families in this process to ensure that important lessons are learned for the future. “Although we have low mortality rates compared to other national trusts, we remain committed to improving services and have recently made significant investments in maternity employment to attract more staff and further improve standards of care. “I can assure our communities that we are constantly striving to ensure that the care we provide here is safe and that we listen to what our wives and families tell us. “I also want to take this opportunity to thank the incredible maternity teams in all their confidence, who continue to care for our patients and have done so during the most difficult period during the pandemic.” The Trust said in March that capacity, increased birth rates, increasing complexity, rising caesarean section rates and induced labor remain “key concerns for maternity services”. He said he regularly diverts cases from the Royal Derby to Queen’s in Burton – and occasionally out of trust – due to bed capacity and staff shortages. In March she said she had 30 vacancies for midwives, out of about 350. The Trust has forecast that it will oversee 8,783 births this year, up from 8,452 last year. She says that despite the staffing challenges, maternity services were rated high by service users in a February 2021 survey. It ranked the UHDB as one of the top five in the Midlands for both prenatal and postnatal care, according to a survey of 200 women. In November, the trust revealed that more than 50 new people were to be hired and 6 3.6 million would be spent on an effort to improve maternity services over the next three years. Most of the new staff will be midwives, but other roles will include secretaries and ultrasound (staff who use ultrasound equipment to check and diagnose medical conditions). The Trust states that it continues to hire midwives, nationally and internationally, and “takes all measures we can to support our precious midwives.” He says he continues to “prioritize listening and learning from families to develop opportunities to increase their involvement in investigations, security reviews and service improvements in the trust and continues to work to further strengthen these relationships.” Read more related articles Read more related articles
