The trust that runs the Royal Lancaster Infirmary has been named in a damning report into the care given by NHS maternity wards.
The findings at The University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust – who also run Furness General Hospital in Barrow and Westmorland General Hospital in Kendal - are part of the wider National Maternity and Neonatal Investigation.
The review, carried out by Baroness Valerie Amos, calls for urgent change to the way women and families are treated, after it found they were often ignored, concerns dismissed and left to suffer avoidable harm.
The Amos review gathered the views of hundreds of families and received more than 10,500 responses to a public call for evidence.
12 NHS trusts with poor records on maternity were visited and more than 9,000 staff contributed to the investigation.
The report said: "There is absolutely no justification for the tragic cases of unsafe care and avoidable harm we continue to see in England.
"Nor is it acceptable that so many women and families experience a poor response and lack of accountability when something has gone wrong.
"We found staff morale to be generally low with a feeling that Morecambe Bay was once more under scrutiny.
"Midwives told us about public attention causing them to remove their work badges in public and being made to feel ashamed of their jobs despite being inherently proud of the work they do.’’
Steve Williamson, Chief Executive, University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust (pictured below), said: “We welcome the publication of the National Maternity and Neonatal Investigation, and want to thank Baroness Amos and her team for carrying out this important piece of work.
“As a Trust, we were keen to be involved in the investigation as it gave us the opportunity to share learning and examples of good practice from our improvement journey and highlight any further work we could do to strengthen our maternity services.''
“It’s important that we acknowledge the ongoing pain that some families are going through because of actions taken by this Trust in the past. While we have made significant changes and improvements in recent years, that does not lessen the impact on those involved, and we will never forget that.
“However, we are in a very different place now and our teams have given their all to make positive changes to the services we offer local families. These changes include establishing a new leadership team, strengthening governance and oversight, and embedding a culture focused on openness, learning and effective multidisciplinary working.
‘’We are listening more closely to families, investing in bereavement support and triage facilities, improving staffing levels, and taking targeted action to ensure more equitable care for all women and their babies.
“These improvements have been recognised by the CQC who recently rated our maternity services as ‘good’ for the first time since 2019, We were also ranked fourth nationally for overall positive scores in the recent CQC Maternity Survey with most survey questions showing either stability or improvement.
“These significant changes deserve to be celebrated but it isn’t the end. We know we have more to do and are absolutely committed to continuing to work with our teams, families, key partners and local communities to move forward.”
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