Government orders urgent review of maternity services at East Kent Hospitals

NHS England and NHS Improvement will commission an urgent independent review of maternity services at East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust, where several babies have died preventable deaths.

An independent support team has already been sent to the trust, which has been under the spotlight since failings in care emerged during an inquest into the death of baby Harry Richford.1 He died in November 2017, a week after his birth at Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Hospital in Margate. The coroner concluded that Harry’s death had been “wholly avoidable.”

The coroner criticised the trust for initially categorising the death as “expected,” meaning that he was not informed, …