Shropshire hospital trust 'focused on public reaction more than improvements' after maternity investigation
A hospital trust at the centre of an inquiry into baby deaths was more concerned with the public's reaction to a report into its maternity services than ensuring the services improved, an investigation has found.
The investigation looking into the conduct of managers at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust was launched by NHS bosses following a complaint made by families last year.
It alleged that the trust's management sought to "cover up and water down" concerns in a report into its maternity care by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) after staff were not happy with initial findings.
The trust, which runs Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and Telford's Princess Royal Hospital, had commissioned the review in 2017.
However, a report published by NHS Improvement following the investigation says a "number of staff were unhappy" with an initial draft report and felt it was not an accurate representation of the service.
The report, released today, says the trust accepted the RCOG's report in January 2018, but "remained concerned about its tone and context" and proposed a follow-up exercise to show improvements it felt had been made.
The NHS Improvement report said this was "reasonable" but also concluded that the trust had sought to "mitigate the perceived adverse impact of publishing the initial report".
The complaint from families said an addendum, which was then produced by RCOG, "softened" the initial report.
The report from NHS Improvement says a covering paper which was then prepared by management for the trust board "was overwhelmingly positive in tone" and "gave the impression that issues in the maternity service had been largely resolved, when in fact there was significant further work to do".
It says: "We can understand why the trust wanted to publish the report alongside assurances of improvements made, but it would have been more transparent to publish sooner, along with a clear statement of how the issues would be addressed.
"All board members were kept informed of the report’s progress and could have challenged the approach or timelines, but did not."
It adds: "It is important to acknowledge that the trust was not obligated to commission the RCOG review but chose to do so and committed from the start to publish the results, knowing that this would open itself up to further scrutiny.
"However, when the outcome was less favourable than hoped for, the primary trust focus seemed to shift towards the perceived public reaction to the report, rather than getting the right internal assurance and scrutiny to ensure the improvement of services."
Meanwhile it has now been confirmed that an independent inquiry into maternity care at the trust is now looking at more than 1,800 cases.
SaTH's chairman Ben Reid, said he accepted the NHS Improvement report and would act on all of the recommendations.
He added: “Whilst the report states that the RCOG report was not withheld from the board, it is clear that internal scrutiny would have been improved if we had decided not to wait for the addendum to the report before placing it before the board and the quality and safety committee.
“Action plans were being produced within the trust but, without the oversight of the full governance process, that clearly wasn’t a robust enough response.
“We, as a trust, and I personally, have learnt a valuable lesson as to how we handle such reports in the future.
"I consider it my responsibility to take these lessons forward and ensure they are applied across the organisation.”
