Health officials have ditched a panel of experts reviewing scores of deaths at a scandal-hit maternity unit amid conflict of interest fears.
The Government-ordered inquiry is reviewing around 220 suspicious incidents at Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust dating back two decades – including 200 deaths.
However, last week families expressed fury at the supervising panel, accusing some of the experts of being implicated in the scandal.
And now NHS Improvement has disbanded the controversial panel, saying it will ensure that families are given the answers they need.
Rhiannon Davies from Ludlow, Shropshire, pictured with her daughter Kate moments after she was born on March 1, 2009. The infant died just six hours later
Families at the heart of the scandal believe the appointments were put in place to water down the review’s findings.
Today the affected families praised the NHS Improvement annoucement, claiming the ‘obstruction of truth has been prevented’.
Allegations of a cover-up or conflict of interest have been rejected by those on the panel.
NHS Improvement chief operating officer, Dr Kathy McLean, said the body was committed to ensuring Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust learns as much as it can from the review.
Dr McLean added: ‘In response to feedback from families, NHS Improvement has decided to stand down the independent review panel.’
She claimed the intention had ‘always’ been to provide additional scrutiny to the review, being undertaken by senior independent midwife Donna Ockenden.
Richard Stanton, pictured with his wife Rhiannon Stanton-Davies, pictured, last week accused the NHS trust of trying to cover up the cause of their daughter’s death
But Dr McLean added: ‘It is clear that its role has prompted concerns, which we hope are now resolved.
‘The review remains completely independent and NHS Improvement will ensure that families are given the answers they need and that lessons are learnt.’
The panel included the head of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG), which produced a damning report into the trust two years ago that went unpublished.
Instead, the college was allegedly paid by the trust to write up a glowing ‘progress update’ nine months later which essentially whitewashed their own findings.
Had the college published its first report – or alerted NHS watchdogs – subsequent tragedies may have been avoided.
The review’s panel also included the head of the Royal College of Midwives, which for years has been focussed on women having natural births rather than caesareans.
Furthermore, the Royal College of Midwives is the union representing those midwives from the trust whose alleged poor care led to tragedy.
The panel also includes two officials from NHS Improvement, the regulator which failed to pick up on the trust’s higher-than-average baby death rate.
And the panel also included staff from the Care Quality Commission (CQC), which had previously written reports on the trust.
Rhiannon Davies and Richard Stanton, the parents of baby Kate, who died at the trust in 2009, praised the intervention.
In a statement to the Health Service Journal, the parents said: ‘Thanks again to the incredible strength of bereaved families.
‘Working in conjunction with respected media, the obstruction of the truth has been prevented.
‘The removal of this so-called scrutiny panel is the right decision, the only decision.
The Government-ordered inquiry is reviewing around 220 suspicious incidents at Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust – including 200 deaths
Shrewsbury’s maternity services have been in the spotlight since April 2017, when the former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt ordered a review (pictured, a Mail headline last August)
‘We can only hope the professionals with whom Donna Ockenden is conducting her review will not have been so grossly insulted by the creation of the panel that they choose to quit.’
Last week, it emerged that a CQC panel member, Nigel Acheson, had previously led an inspection of the trust in 2017.
A year after his ‘requires improvement’ verdict, the CQC went back to the trust and rated it inadequate with serious safety concerns in maternity.
In a statement, Professor Ted Baker, CQC’s chief inspector of hospitals, said the watchdog did not believe Dr Acheson was conflicted.
Both the RCOG and RCM have rejected claims they were compromised by being members of the panel.
Shrewsbury’s maternity services have been in the spotlight since April 2017, when the former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt ordered a review.
It was initially investigating 23 cases of alleged poor care but in recent months it has expanded as dozens more families have come forward.
Some claim their babies died after they were encouraged to have natural births, while others accuse midwives of missing fatal infections in their newborns.
The total number of babies who have died or been harmed is expected to eclipse the tragedy at University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay in Cumbria.
There, 16 babies and three women died unnecessarily over ten years.
The failures at Shrewsbury have been pinned on a lack of training, a culture of denial and a failure to intervene when labours went wrong.