Parents 'horrified' by maternity services report

There are "significant'' concerns about the safety and quality of maternity services at an NHS trust, a new report has revealed.

Issues with staffing, a "challenging'' culture and a lack of learning from previous incidents were identified at Leeds Teaching Hospitals (LTH) NHS Trust.

NHS England published its findings following a visit to the trust in March this year. It made 101 recommendations to improve the quality of care and ensure the "wellbeing'' of mothers and babies.

In response, LTH said making urgent improvements was a "priority''.

The MSSP report comes a month after LTH's maternity services at two hospitals were downgraded from "good" to "inadequate" by the Care Quality Commission.

Fiona Winser-Ramm, whose daughter Aliona died in 2020 after what an inquest found to be a number of "gross failures", is among dozens of families calling for an independent inquiry into the maternity services to ensure accountability for the deaths or injuries of their babies.

The trust's CEO Phil Wood announced this month, just days before the report was published, that he would retire at the end of the year.

He has led the trust since February 2023, but has been at LTH for more than a decade, including as chief medical officer from May 2020 until his appointment as CEO.

Bereaved families said the timing of Mr Wood's departure was "concerning" given the ongoing issues with maternity services and worried there was a lack of accountability given that he was at the trust when dozens of mothers and babies faced potentially avoidable harm.

Rabina Tindale, chief nurse at LTH, said: "This report has highlighted significant areas where we need to improve our maternity services, and my priority is to make sure we urgently take action to deliver the recommendations.

"I would like to apologise to all the families who have received maternity care with us which has fallen short of the high standard we aim to provide."

The trust was committed to delivering the "highest standard of care" to everyone, she added, and was taking steps to deliver "safe", "high-quality" and "compassionate" care.

Mr Wood said: "My intention was to retire in the next 12 to 18 months, but with the changes taking place within the NHS nationally, this feels like the right time for me to hand over to a new leader.

"I am committed to making sure our robust maternity improvement plans, already developed with the CQC and NHS England, are fully embedded, and that we engage constructively with the Rapid National Investigation into Maternity and Neonatal services as it develops."

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