Parents of baby who died minutes after being born call for independent investigation into NHS trust

The parents of a girl who died within minutes of being born have called for an independent investigation into an NHS trust fined £1.6m for failing to provide safe care and treatment to three other babies who died.

Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH) NHS Trust pleaded guilty to six charges of failing to provide safe care and treatment to the three children and their mothers at Nottingham Magistrates' Court on Monday.

The charges were related to the deaths of Adele O'Sullivan, who was 26 minutes old when she died on 7 April 2021, four-day-old Kahlani Rawson, who died on 15 June 2021, and Quinn Parker, who was one day old when he died on 16 July 2021.

Family members cried in the courtroom after the trust was fined £1.6m for a "catalogue of failures" that led to their deaths.

The trust has become the first to be prosecuted more than once after being first fined in January 2023 following the death of Wynter Andrews. Wynter died 23 minutes after she was born at the Queen's Medical Centre in September 2019.

The NUH was fined £800,000 after it admitted it failed to provide safe care and treatment that resulted in her death.

Her parents, Sarah and Gary, want the Department of Health and Social Care to involve healthcare regulators in carrying out an independent, external investigation.

"The time for empty promises is over," they told the BBC. "The time to listen and learn is now."

Mr Andrews said the trust had failed to listen to warnings about staffing issues in the maternity unit.

"We watched the proceedings of (Wednesday's) prosecutions from the public gallery as concerned parents - who were promised several years ago that our daughter's death would bring about change.

"It is apparent that those entrusted to bring about change failed to do so."

Mrs Andrews has previously said she was "failed in the most cruel way".

'Serious and systemic failures'

The court was told all three mothers and their babies were exposed to serious harm, as a result of "serious and systemic failures".

District Judge Grace Leong told the hearing the "catalogue of failures" in the trust's maternity unit were "avoidable and should never have happened".

District Judge Leong highlighted "critical failures" in care as she said the purpose of the sentencing hearing, in which she was limited to imposing a fine, was to "ensure the trust responsible is held to account and meaningful steps are taken to prevent such failures in the care of mothers and their babies, while recognising the harm caused".

The £1.6m fine included £700,000 for the death of Quinn Parker, £300,000 each for the deaths of Adele O'Sullivan and Kahlani Rawson and £100,000 each for the mothers.

The trust was also ordered to pay prosecution costs of more than £67,000 as well as a surcharge of £190.

In a statement released after the hearing, NUH chief executive Anthony May said: "The mothers and families of these babies have had to endure things that no family should after the care provided by our hospitals failed them, and for that I am truly sorry.

"We fully accept the findings in court today and have already implemented changes to help prevent incidences like this from this happening again."

This case is the second time the CQC has prosecuted the trust over failures in maternity care.

NUH is also at the centre of the largest maternity inquiry in NHS history, with midwife Donna Ockenden leading the investigation.

In February she confirmed the number of families taking part has increased to 2,032 - forcing a delay to her report's publication until June 2026.

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