Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said the case of Wynter Andrews, who died after failings at a Nottingham hospital, shows more must be done' to improve maternity safety. Mr Sunak spoke of baby Wynter, who died just 23 minutes after she was born at Queen's Medical Centre in September 2019.
Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH) was fined £800,000 over serious failings in the care and treatment of her and mum Sarah Andrews. During Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Commons on Wednesday, February 1, David Wantage, MP for Wantage in Oxfordshire, relayed Sarah and Gary's experience of a lack of transparency from NUH as they dealt with Wynter's death.
He asked: "Does my right honourable friend agree with me that this case, this situation, has to serve not just as a watershed moment for having the highest standards of maternity care but also when things do go wrong in something like an NHS trust or another public body they have to be open, honest and transparent about their failings so people can get the truth and not have it hidden from them?
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In response, Mr Sunak said: "I'm very sorry to hear about the tragic case that my honourable friend raises and I know the whole house will join me in sending our thoughts to Gary and Sarah. We want to make sure that the NHS is the best and safest place in the world to give birth and the NHS has taken steps to improve but cases such as this highlights that more must be done.
"Nottingham university trust is receiving support from the expert maternity improvement advisors and nationally the Royal College is implementing the recommendations from the independent Ockenden report, together with £127 million of extra investment. My honourable friend is absolutely right, when situations like this do arise transparency is paramount so we can seek answers and make improvements."
More than 1,500 families are expected to be covered by the independent Nottingham maternity review, which would make it the largest NHS maternity scandal in the UK, surpassing the 1,486 families examined during the separate maternity review which was also led by senior midwife Donna Ockenden in Shrewsbury.
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