Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust has apologized to the public of Greater Manchester after a damning report on its maternity services was made public by a whistleblower and the Manchester Evening News.

The Internal Report told of how  staff left a premature baby “in a sluice room to die alone” and misdiagnosed a mother who died from a “catastrophic haemorrhage” in two separate cases at North Manchester General Hospital and Oldham’s Royal Hospital.

Explaining the reasoning behind the report,Professor Matthew Makin, Medical Director of The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, said:

“Following the initial feedback from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection in late February, the new Salford Royal executive leadership team requested that the newly appointed divisional director for women and children’s services carry out an internal in-depth service review of our maternity services. This review was part of a wider diagnostic review and more detailed look into the organisation, the culture, our staffing pressures and operational service delivery.” 

“Our new Trust Chief Executive and the senior team wanted to understand fully the issues and problems affecting services, and what urgent action needed to be taken to improve patient care and to make our more pressured services safer and more reliable. In addition to this internal management report written by the newly appointed director for women and children’s services in June, a further extensive review was carried out by midwifery colleagues from Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Trust as part of their support and involvement in our improvement plan. Both of these reports identified the same issues that were already raised by the CQC in its formal inspection report published in August.
He adored that the Trust, in addition to the appointment of a new Head of Midwifery, 31 new midwives started in post across our two maternity units at North Manchester and Oldham last month. 

“A further 58 new midwives joining us since April, the new management team is being supported by Central Manchester NHS FT who are providing supplementary clinical leadership support in order to stabilise and strengthen services on the North Manchester site.”

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