Shrewsbury maternity scandal: Damning inquiry finds 295 avoidable baby deaths and brain damage cases
Poor maternity care led to 295 avoidable baby deaths or brain damage cases at a hospital trust at the centre of the largest maternity scandal to ever hit the NHS, a much-anticipated inquiry has found.
Several mothers died after failings in care, while others were made to have natural births despite the fact they should have been offered a Caesarean, according to the report into Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust.
Babies were stillborn, died shortly after birth, left severely brain damaged or with broken bones due to catastrophic failings over nearly 20 years, the inquiry led by maternity expert Donna Ockenden found.
She said the report – which looked at cases involving more than 1,400 families – showed “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”.
It comes two years after 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.
