Tragically there’s been very concerning news coming from the Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust investigation, where dozens more cases of poor care have been uncovered at a hospital’s maternity service. The story has been covered on the front page of the Daily Mail, the Health Service Journal and by Sky News.
Two of the babies mentioned in these articles had early-onset group B Strep infection; Pippa Griffiths and Jack Burns. Tragically, both babies died. We are sad to see that simple mistakes were made, both in the care of the mothers and of the babies. We fervently hope that the Trust will learn from their mistakes to improve their maternity services going forward.
We are very sad that this is happening – the NHS need to learn from these tragic events, and work to ensure they are prevented going forward.
Patient safety must be prioritised. Group B Strep infection in newborn babies can usually be easily avoided, which makes what happened to Pippa and Jack even more devastating. My heart goes out to all of the families affected.