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Parents speak out after being let down by maternity care at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust
Half of newborn babies who died at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust between 2021 and 2022 had been given 'poor' or 'very poor' care after being admitted.
That was the conclusion of yet another damning report into the state of maternity services in the Midlands.
The paper was commissioned by the Trust and carried out by the Royal College of Physicians - and it found that while there were some examples of good or excellent care, too many were still not meeting that standard.
Among the cases examined was that of James-Dean, the baby son of Dean Hindley and his partner Brianne.
He died in October 2021 after a catalogue of errors.
"Our world completely shattered that day," Dean told ITV News Central.
"We have had three years of waiting, damning reports, phone calls, meetings and apologies and yet nothing seems to have changed. We are exhausted by the system," he adds.
He and Brianne had been trying to get pregnant for around six years, eventually turning to IVF in March 2021.
They were thrilled to conceive - Dean said they "could not wait" to be parents.
But at just 26 weeks, Brianne began to experience painful cramps - and they went to the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford.
They said she was made to wait for more than an hour as their concerns were dismissed - until her waters broke, with blood on the floor.
Dean was called in and watched as his premature son was resuscitated, and rushed to Neonatal ICU. When they got there, they were told James-Dean had not survived.
"We were in utter disbelief… We had no time to prepare. It did not make sense.
"We howled with pain," he said.
They later learned that doctors had tried multiple times to intubate James-Dean with a tube which was too big; had then inserted it too deep, and used a higher level of oxygen than his body could handle.
Other failures around medication and temperature control were also identified.
“We recognise that this latest report demonstrates examples of excellent and good care but we must not forget that the majority of cases had poor or very poor care and that is not good enough,” Dean added.
“I can only hope that the recommendations made are implemented and this report can be used as a blueprint for change.
“We cannot get James-Dean back but we will fight every day in his memory and to ensure this doesn’t happen to another family.”
In total, 18 babies were included in the review, with 16 given ratings for the quality of care they received.
Only five were graded as having had ‘good’ care; three as ‘adequate’; seven as ‘poor’; and one as ‘very poor’.
Dr John Jones, the Trust’s medical director, was the man who asked for the review to be conducted.
It came as the final report by independent midwife Donna Ockenden was published in March 2022, and examined all neonatal babies who died after being born at the Trust between 2021-22.
The Trust has an infant mortality rate of 5% above the national average, with the West Midlands region the highest in England.
“Our neonatal teams care for hundreds of very unwell babies through the early critical days of their lives. We owe it to them and their families to give the best care,” he said.
“We wanted to understand how our services could be improved, and anything we could do to reduce the above-average perinatal mortality rates in the Trust and across the West Midlands.
“The review team did not identify evidence to indicate that the quality of care provided to babies by the neonatal services was substandard or directly contributing to the unit’s outlier status in terms of perinatal mortality.
"However, although they described examples of good care, there were also examples of poor care that should have been significantly better. We apologise wholeheartedly for this.
“We have written to each of the 18 families whose baby or babies’ care was reviewed and have begun meeting with them, in person, to answer any questions and to offer support.
"We are grateful for their time and willingness to engage with us as we seek to improve our services wherever possible."
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