Video: Sarah and Jack Hawkins say they want answers after baby Harriet was stillborn.
The parents of a baby girl who was stillborn at Nottingham City Hospital say a change in the law is needed to avoid more tragedies and a repetition of what they call a “catalogue of failings” during the birth.
Harriet Hawkins was born dead in April 2016, five days after her mother Sarah and father Jack first called midwives to say they thought labour had started.
An external report later said if Sarah and Harriet been bettered monitored by staff, Harriet’s deterioration could have been spotted sooner and her life could have been saved.
The couple are now calling for the Government to change legislation to allow coroners to investigate similar deaths. Currently coroners cannot examine stillbirths in England.
As part of a series of allegations, the Hawkins, who live in Nottingham, also say they believe the hospital tried to ‘cover up’ failings in the build-up to the tragic birth of their first child – something Peter Homa, the Chief Executive of Nottingham University Hospitals Trust, denies.
Mr Homa issued an apology from the trust and said there were failings in Sarah’s care, which were so serious Harriet might be alive if they had not happened.
But in rejecting the couple’s allegation of a cover-up, he insisted staff “seek to communicate openly and ensure families are kept updated of our investigations”.
NHS policy says incidents such as deaths in childbirth should be declared as Serious Untoward Incidents, known as SUIs, within 72 hours of the event, and that a full investigation report should be published two months after the event.
However the Hawkins’ say that no SUI was launched until they asked the hospital, eventually starting 179 days after the birth.
Both Jack and Sarah work for Nottingham University Hospitals Trust. Jack is a consultant and clinical director for NHS Improvement, and Sarah is a senior physiotherapist.
After the Hawkins rejected some of the conclusions of the first SUI report, a second report has now been ordered by the Clinical Commissioning Group, which is still ongoing.
“[What we want first of all] is justice for our daughter – I think there should be one positive thing that comes out of Harriet, of all the negatives,” said Sarah.
“If we can put the word out there about the Coroner review – the fact Coroners don’t review stillborn babies is just unbelievable – babies, unless you have a catastrophic event, should be born alive. This is the prime example of when a death should be investigated.”
She added: “I don’t think we’ll ever recover from it, it’s just something you’ve got to live with, and when people say to us, ‘with time it gets better’, it doesn’t, it stays the same.”
“The sad thing is you don’t realise how many pregnant women there are – or babies there are. All the adverts on TV, they are based around families, and you don’t realise that, so suddenly, it’s always there.
“We will always be parents, we had our daughter, however, she should be alive.”
Jack said: “We went through a long period – and still do – of having problems sleeping and we record stuff just that’s on TV now so we can skip through the nappy adverts, the milk adverts, because that’s the time of day or night that we would have been up with a teething toddler.”
The couple are taking legal advice and have appointed Switalskis Solicitors to represent them. Janet Baker, a clinical negligence lawyer and director at the firm, said: “I have practiced in the area of clinical negligence for over 20 years, and never have a seen such a horrendous string of errors.”
In a statement, Mr Homa said: “I reiterate my condolences to Jack and Sarah and acknowledge the unimaginable distress and sadness caused by Harriet’s death. I apologise unreservedly that their pain has been worsened knowing that had the shortcomings in care late in Sarah’s pregnancy not been experienced, Harriet might be alive today.
“An external investigation concluded a number of failings in our care and processes, notably that had more active monitoring of Sarah and Harriet occurred during labour, there may have been opportunities to identify earlier signs of distress and deterioration. The report concluded that earlier intervention might have altered the outcome.
“We have made substantial changes to our systems of clinical care, governance, processes and personnel in response to this case and a broader investigation of maternity services. The key changes we have made in response to all of the investigations are a strengthened maternity leadership structure and improved involvement of parents in the investigation process.
“Whilst we fully recognise there were shortcomings, we do not accept that NUH has conducted a cover-up. When families are involved in an incident, we seek to communicate openly and ensure they are kept updated of our investigations.
“NUH has completed a full review of patient safety and outcomes in its maternity service since this tragic case. While areas of improvement have been identified, there is no compelling evidence to suggest that outcomes in our maternity services are different to those in other similar maternity units in England and Wales. We have learnt from all of these incidents and are committed to doing everything we can to provide the safest and best quality care for our mothers and babies.”
The change sought by the couple would broaden the jurisdiction of a Coroner to allow inquests to be held into the deaths of babies after 37 weeks gestation.
Currently they are unable to investigate a stillbirth – a baby born dead after 24 weeks of pregnancy.
This change to Coronial Law would bring England and Wales in line with Northern Ireland where, following a landmark legal ruling in 2013, it was held the “Coroner can carry out an inquest into the death of a stillborn child that had been capable of being born alive.”
Jack and Sarah are also calling for Hospital trusts to share stillbirth statistics with their local Coroner’s Office.
