Hundreds more cases of baby deaths, stillbirths and brain damage raising “very serious” concerns have been uncovered in a scandal that now threatens to be one of the worst in the history of the National Health Service (NHS), reports The Guardian. A review of incidents on maternity wards at Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust has identified 1,170 cases that warrant investigation.
The review covers fatalities and other serious outcomes in a 40-year period up to the end of 2018. In January the government said the number of cases under review had climbed to 900. According to figures released by the chair of the review, Donna Ockenden, a further 270 cases are also being investigated. “The total now stands at 1,170 as more families have been identified,” she is quoted in the report as saying. “The cases have kept growing as the number of families coming forward to us has continued.”
Ockenden, a maternity specialist commissioned by the government in 2017 to conduct the review, declined to say how many deaths were involved as the investigation continues.
The report says an initial inquiry into about 250 cases found that at least 42 babies and three mothers may have died unnecessarily and more than 50 newborns suffered avoidable brain damage at the trust. Since then hundreds more cases have emerged.
[link url="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/apr/21/baby-deaths-scandal-could-be-one-of-largest-in-history-of-nhs"]Full report in The Guardian[/link]