50 babies have died at hospital with ‘unsafe staffing’ as parents demand ‘cover up’ investigation
NEWBORN Harry Richford came into the world amid chaotic scenes in the labour ward – and a week later he was dead.
Now, after a coroner ruled he was killed by neglect, his grieving parents Sarah and Tom are calling for further investigations into the health trust.
And a Sun probe can reveal that in the Richfords’ local maternity services in East Kent there were more than 100 serious incidents in the past decade — leading to 50 deaths.
Little Harry died after his badly bungled delivery in 2017 left him with brain damage. His grandfather Derek — whose search for the truth brought about the tot’s inquest and two other wider investigations — accuses NHS managers of doing, “Everything in their power to avoid outside scrutiny”.
Last week coroner Christopher Sutton-Mattocks said Harry had been “failed” by staff at the Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Hospital in Margate and ruled that he had died as a result of neglect when an “inexperienced” doctor took 28 minutes to resuscitate him.
He also criticised hospital bosses for initially classifying his death as “expected”, even though mum Sarah, a PE teacher, had had a healthy pregnancy. Senior staff repeatedly told Sarah and her partner Tom, both 31, that only “unexpected” deaths could be sent to the coroner for independent scrutiny.
This week it was revealed that 26 more baby deaths at East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust are being investigated by a watchdog.
124 BABY DEATHS
Derek said: “Everyone on the trust’s board of directors should have a long, hard look in the mirror and look at the salary they are taking.
“I think they are thinking this is all a big fuss, but until they accept they have problems they have got no chance of solving them.
“The current board of directors need to make changes fast.”
Data uncovered as part of several Freedom of Information requests reveal that there have been 124 baby deaths over the past seven years at East Kent hospitals, but only 24 were reported to the coroner to be independently scrutinised.
Derek said of Harry’s death: “On the child death notification form, which they have to fill in, they ticked the box to say it was an ‘expected death’. That meant it didn’t have to be reported to the coroner. The coroner was very critical of them for that.
“There was no reason to expect Harry’s death on the night.”
102 'SERIOUS INCIDENTS'
FOIs additionally reveal that between 2009 and 2019, 50 deaths during maternity care were linked to 102 “serious untoward incidents” in East Kent’s maternity service. The figures are set against a backdrop of major concerns about the trust’s ability to perform maternity services.
Following concerns raised in 2013, a 2014 report by the local Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) flagged up “severe issues” and “serious incidents”.
After the report’s damning remarks, the trust’s medical director, Dr Paul Stevens, invited the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) to inspect its birthing wards in November 2015.
'UNSAFE' STAFFING & 'EXTREME RISK'
The professional body also delivered a withering report. It discovered “poor governance”, consultants refusing to turn up on weekends or evenings, poor checks on staff CVs and repeated failure to learn from mistakes.
RCOG staff assumed the trust would share the report with inspectors from the Care Quality Commission, the watchdog responsible for overseeing standards in the NHS. Instead, the trust kept the findings to itself.
Margate and Ashford hospitals have been in trouble since August 2014, when inspectors placed the trust in “special measures”.
Last February the same watchdog found that “unsafe” staffing levels were putting children at risk, while in 2018 traces of the MRSA superbug were found on the skin of babies at the Ashford hospital.
Shortly afterwards, a warning about an “extreme risk” to mothers on neonatal wards was added to the trust’s corporate risk register.
Every NHS trust must report problems on this internal register and set a timeframe to resolve them. But the date for the risks to be eradicated were constantly pushed back.
HARRY'S DOCTOR 'INEXPERIENCED'
Derek claimed the findings proved, “The trust had prior knowledge, they knew they had extreme problems and they did nothing with it”.
He suggested the problems raised in the RCOG report played a part in restricting Harry’s life to just one week in November 2017.
The hospital initially told Harry’s family that the doctor who oversaw his birth had two years’ experience as a registrar. This would have meant he was a specialist in his field. In fact, his CV stated he had nine months’ experience.
FAKE DOCTORS
While this doctor was not fake, East Kent has twice been duped by fake doctors in the past — Dr Henry Akpata in 2005 and Levon Mkhitarian in 2013.
Other failings that led to Harry being deprived of oxygen were poor communication between staff and the late arrival of a consultant.
Derek said: “We are now calling for a public inquiry, not for Harry but for the other babies at risk or who died.” They include Tallulah-Rai Edwards, who died after a midwife failed to spot her heartbeat was dangerously faint last January.
DEAD BABIES INQUEST CALLS
Late in the pregnancy her mum Shelley Russell, 39, went to Buckland Hospital in Dover because the baby was not moving as much as usual. The mum of two said the experienced midwife kept leaving a student colleague to monitor Tallulah-Rai’s heart rate.
Despite the junior midwife struggling to find a heartbeat, the senior staff member sent Shelley home — and Tallulah-Rai died in the womb two days later. The tragedy was all the worse as Shelley and partner Nicholas Edwards, 49, had been told they could not have children because her Fallopian tubes were blocked.
Shelley said: “We had so many hopes and dreams for everything. What an amazing girl Tallulah-Rai would have been.
“It’s destroyed our dreams because me and Nicholas were told we’d never be able to conceive.”
In April 2017, Hallie-Rae Leek died aged four days after a midwife struggled to find a heartbeat and it took too long to resuscitate her.
Last February Dawn Powell’s son Archie died at the Margate hospital when medics failed to spot he had a common streptococcus infection.
Baby Archie Batten died in September after his mother was told to drive 38 miles from Margate to Ashford’s William Harvey hospital while she was in labour.
'NO COVER-UP'
Natalie Elphicke, the MP for Dover and Deal, said: “We need to know how many avoidable deaths have taken place in our local hospital maternity services and the action that is being taken to make immediate improvements.
“There can be no cover-up. It’s time for health chiefs to level with our community.”
The East Kent Trust is now facing a possible criminal inquiry at the hands of the Care Quality Commission and the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch is looking into the other 26 potentially “preventable” baby deaths.
The doctor in Harry’s case is now working at a different hospital after having restrictions placed on him by the medical governing body.
The General Medical Council is investigating two other doctors, and four midwives may also face censure. The senior midwife who failed to spot Tallulah-Rai’s dangerously faint heartbeat has returned to work after extra training.
Former chief executive Matthew Kershaw left the East Kent trust just two months before Harry’s death, having overseen the worst A&E performance in the country.
He told The Sun reports had been shared “openly” in order to improve maternity care, adding: “Our concern then — as it will be with the trust now — was to make sure every woman and family got the highest standard of care.”
Friday night the trust issued a statement claiming it had started to “improve safety” back in 2016.
It added: “We recognise, however, that the scale of change needed in our maternity service has not taken place quickly enough.
“We are also truly sorry that Harry’s family was not given the support and answers they needed.
“We deeply regret the extra pain that our delays have caused them.”
- Links to advice and support services can be found on the Richfords’ website, .
- GOT a news story? RING us on 0207 782 4104 or WHATSAPP on 07423720250 or EMAIL exclusive@the-sun.co.uk