Report flags serious concerns over NHS trust’s maternity care

An NHS England report has identified significant concerns about the safety and quality of maternity care at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.

The findings, published after a visit in March, included 101 recommendations to improve the quality of care and ensure the wellbeing of mothers and babies.

Key issues involved staffing problems, a “challenging” culture, and poor learning from earlier incidents.

Over the past six months, the BBC spoke to 67 families who said they experienced inadequate care at the trust. Several said their babies suffered avoidable injury or death.

Five whistleblowers also raised safety concerns.

Two months after the BBC’s initial report, NHS England placed the trust under its national Maternity Safety Support Programme (MSSP), which is triggered when serious concerns are identified.

An NHS whistleblower told the BBC that “huge concerns” remained and that many of the same issues were raised back in January during a Rapid Quality Review Meeting.

They said the trust likely saw the MSSP findings as early as May.

A spokesperson for a group of bereaved Leeds families said the MSSP report, which also highlights good practice, made “truly shocking and horrifying reading”.

The spokesperson said: “As bereaved and harmed families, this most recent report, yet again, totally vindicates what we have been saying for years.

“The culture of denial, the failure to listen and the absence of real accountability are systemic and persistent,”

The MSSP report follows last month’s Care Quality Commission decision to downgrade maternity services at both of the trust’s hospitals from “good” to “inadequate”.

Fiona Winser-Ramm, whose daughter Aliona died in 2020 after what an inquest found to be “gross failures”, is one of dozens of families now calling for an independent inquiry to ensure accountability for baby deaths or injuries.

The BBC previously reported that the deaths of 56 babies at Leeds hospitals may have been preventable.

The trust’s chief executive, Phil Wood, announced earlier this month—just days before the report was released—that he will retire at the end of the year.

Wood has led the trust since February 2023 and was chief medical officer from May 2020.

Bereaved families said the timing of his departure raised concerns, given his leadership roles during years when dozens of cases of potential avoidable harm occurred.

Rabina Tindale, chief nurse at the trust, 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.”

She said the trust remained committed to delivering “safe”, “high-quality” and “compassionate” care.

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.”