Imagine if you will a private business, one selling widgets for example, that failed to respond to complaints and which was also successfully sued for nearly £3 million by a customer for a death caused by the company’s product. Any private business in that position that didn’t buck their ideas up and continued to provide products that were lethal or unfit for purpose would find themselves hurtling into financial oblivion. This is how things should be. Those who provide bad products or treat their customers with contempt have to bear the consequences.

Sadly this is not the case with the NHS and with Nottingham Maternity Services in particular. This scandal riddled service has already had to pay out millions to one parent whose child was lost due to clinical negligence but continues to be the subject of complaints despite a midwife led inquiry going on into the hospital.

Sky News said:

Families are still coming forward with stories of poor care a year after an independent review was launched into maternity services at a scandal-hit NHS trust.

More than 1,700 cases of possible harm to newborn babies and mothers are being examined at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust over a 10-year period.

The investigation is led by midwife Donna Ockenden, who led a similar review into maternity care at Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust. In 2022 she concluded that catastrophic failures there may have led to the deaths of more than 200 babies.

Solicitor Natalie Cosgrove, who is representing a number of Nottingham families, told Sky News that she had been contacted by people concerned about their care “as recently as March this year”

“Things may be improving as far as the trust would like to say reputationally but I’m not seeing it myself,” she said.

“Those at the top, many appear to be well-meaning, want to improve care, want to show change, but I’m yet to see that filter down.

“That’s not scaremongering, this is a cry to those senior members to listen to your staff, listen to families, recent families coming forward and take them seriously.”

You would think wouldn’t you, as a reasonable person, that a hospital trust that is being investigated for 1700 cases of harm to babies and mothers would at least have the sense to see the investigation as an opportunity to improve. Unfortunately that does not seem to be the case. Despite years of complaints from those who have had the misfortune to have to use Nottingham’s Maternity Services there are still complaints coming in. This sort of inertia where nothing gets done to improve things despite masses of complaints is sadly typical for the NHS. The fact that the management of the hospital are failing to translate good intentions to actual improvements in practise seem to me to show that this hospital’s administration is a mess where the staff at the top are ineffectual and the staff at the bottom of the management chain are absolutely crap. We should not put up with this situation any longer. We need both to admit that the NHS model has failed and also replace it with something that works for the patient and not just for the staff and management of those providing the services.