Maternity changes ‘taking too long’, says grieving grandmother

The Amos report also heard from staff across the trust, who said shortages across midwifery, medical, nursing and support roles “affected their wellbeing and the care they could provide”.

It said: “They described starting shifts short-staffed, missing breaks, working beyond their contracted hours and struggling to protect training time, which contributed to exhaustion, sickness absence and difficulties in staff retention.

While Holland said she was “absolutely” concerned to hear about staffing pressures, she felt it could “be easy to be hoodwinked slightly” into the narrative that problems with maternity services in Leicester were “all about” insufficient staffing levels.

Holland felt hospital bosses did not learn from cases where babies had died or suffered harm and that learning bulletins given to staff were often “inadequate”.

“It’s half-page, there is no measuring whether staff have read it and staff have reflective conversations,” she said.

“That is absolutely inadequate, that is inappropriate when you have caused in some way the death of a child.”

Julie Hogg, chief nurse at University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, said: “The report recognises the compassion and dedication of our colleagues and the improvements already under way. It also makes it clear that some families have not consistently experienced the safe, kind and responsive care they deserve. To those families, we are deeply sorry.

“We also apologise to those who felt they were treated differently because of their ethnicity or cultural background, or who experienced discriminatory comments or behaviour. This is unacceptable. We are taking clear action to address this and to ensure every family receives respectful, equitable and inclusive care.

“We have made important progress in recent years to improve our maternity and neonatal services, including strengthening how we listen to families, increasing staffing, improving triage and introducing digital systems to support safer care.

“We know there is more to do, and we are continuing to work closely with partners to ensure women, babies and families experience these improvements consistently in the day-to-day care.

“We will continue to listen to families and colleagues, act on what we hear, and ensure learning translates into meaningful and lasting change.”