Bereaved parents in Sussex urged to join maternity review

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,, external 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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