The mum of a baby whose death was contributed to by neglect at a hospital is furious that mothers and babies could still be being failed by the Trust. Jodie Stubbs’ boy Iva-Jaylon Champion Weekes died at two months old.
He was born at 24 weeks. An inquest into his death found there had been a catalogue of failings in his care in the days before he passed away.
Iva was one of 31 babies who died in the care of the Royal Stoke in 2021. Now, the University Hospital North Midlands NHS Trust has been told if urgent improvements are not made to its maternity care, its governors, board and directors could find themselves replaced by outside administrators, StokeonTrentLive reports.
Ms Stubbs, 38, said she was horrified to learn that two years on from Iva’s death, services were still not up to scratch.
Mum-of five Ms Stubbs said: “Two years ago I was reassured that all the problems had been solved, but they clearly haven’t been. You put your baby’s life in their hands and you expect they will look after them properly, not neglect them.”
Iva died as a result of a rare complication from a procedure to stop him going blind. But the signs that he was deteriorating were not picked up early enough, and there was no documented evidence he'd had a blood pressure check for up to 15 hours.
He was taken to Birmingham Children’s Hospital, with Ms Stubbs unable to travel in the ambulance because of the covid restrictions in place at time. While she and a relative were in the car park trying to pay to park, she missed a phone call from a withheld number and told her relative “He’s died. I can feel it.”
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Iva dies after suffering cardiac arrest. Coroner Sarah Murphy found in his 2022 inquest that “the failings identified led to, or contributed to, his death.”
Ms Stubbs, from Sneyd Green, had previously lost baby Naomi in 2016, who died around an hour after being born 20 weeks premature in 2016. She said her experience of the Royal Stoke during Iva's care there had left her feeling that there was not enough staff to cope with the numbers of babies in their care.
She said: “The unit was always busy, there would be one nurse to two babies. And then you had the emergencies coming in as well, so they had to take priority. And I just did not feel like they were listening to what I was saying.”
At a Trust board meeting on Wednesday (May 3), hospital chiefs were told that the Care Quality Commission (CQC) has “urgent concerns” about its maternity services. The letter from the CQC to the Trust’s chief executive, Tracy Bullock, added: “We have concluded that significant improvement is still required to ensure service users receive safe care.
“You do not have effective systems in place to ensure staff effectively assess, document and respond to ongoing risks associated with safely triaging service users attempting to access care in line with Trust policy. This exposed service users and their babies to risk of harm.
“Despite changes being made, systems and processes will not yet be embedded, and risk changes may be ineffective in addressing the concerns discussed. You are required to make the significant improvements identified regarding the quality of healthcare by 30th June 2023.
“If you fail to comply with the requirement and thereby fail to make significant improvement to the quality of the health care you provide within the given timescale(s) we will decide what further action to take against you. Possible action includes requiring Monitor, now known as NHS England and NHS Improvement, to make an order under Section 65D (2) of the National Health Service Act 2006 (appointment of Trust special administrator).”
Health campaigner Ian Syme asked board members at Wednesday’s meeting if they acknowledged mothers and babies had received “suboptimal care”. He added: “One woman receiving such care is one too many”.
But board chairman David Wakefield said: “I can’t recognise that term in terms of what I have seen.” Mr Syme also asked if mothers and babies were safe and if there was confidence that the actions required by the CQC were being put in place.
Chief nurse Ann-Marie Riley said that the Trust had been aware of the issues before the notice was issued and measures were being taken to address them. She added that mothers and babies were safe.
She said: “We want to provide timely care but it hasn’t resulted in harm. We have seen significant improvements which are making a difference. We still have some work to do and we need to embed that work and provide evidence to the CQC.”
