Parents urged to join maternity review

Bereaved parents are urging families to come forward ahead of the first in a series of public meetings linked to a major review of maternity and neonatal services in Sussex.

Parents will meet senior midwife Donna Ockenden in Brighton on 5 September as part of her independent review into care provided by University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust (UHSx).

Noel German and Eileen McCarthy, whose son Walter died a week after he was born, are urging other families to come forward, saying it is a chance to "get the truth uncovered and get some legacy for their babies".

The trust said its thoughts remained with families affected by harm and it was committed to fully supporting the review.

The Brighton event is the first of several planned as part of an investigation into more than 1,000 maternity and neonatal cases dating back to 2018.

Families have been invited to help shape the review's terms of reference and find out how they can contribute if they choose to.

German, from campaign group The Truth for Our Babies, said parents had campaigned for years to secure the review and hoped as many families as possible would take part.

He said: "The more information that Donna and her team can uncover, the better instructions they can put in place for the trust to put in place, just so this doesn't happen to any other families.

"This is what everybody wants, that nobody has to suffer this tragic loss anymore."

Walter was born at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton in December 2020.

McCarthy said she thought she was having a normal labour until her son was delivered "blue and unresponsive" and had to be resuscitated.

Walter was starved of oxygen at birth and, when it emerged he would not recover from the resulting brain injury, his parents decided to remove life support.

McCarthy said: "You never arrive at the hospital with a healthy baby expecting to leave the hospital and your baby has died, it's heartbreaking and it scars you for life and it changes you forever."

The review was announced last year by the then Health Secretary Wes Streeting.

It will be led by Ockenden, whose previous reviews examined maternity failings at NHS trusts in Shrewsbury and Telford and Nottingham.

Families attending the meetings will be able to meet members of the review team and hear how the investigation will work.

University Hospitals Sussex runs maternity units in Brighton, Worthing, Chichester and Haywards Heath.

Dr Andy Heeps, chief executive of University Hospitals Sussex, said: "Our thoughts remain first and foremost with the families whose babies have died or who have suffered harm when receiving care in our hospitals."

He said the trust had introduced a number of improvements in recent years and would work with the review team to make services "better, and safer, still".

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