An expert review of the maternity services by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) carried out in 2015 had warned of many of the issues that played a part in Harry’s death, including the reluctance of a group of senior doctors to attend during evening and weekend shifts leaving ill-prepared junior doctors and midwives to care for complicated births.
The experts explicitly warned bosses at the trust thatt if action was not taken it would mean consultants not committed to teaching and supervision would “be on-call with a locum middle-grade doctor, potentially of unknown competence, which could impact on the safety of care in the maternity unit”.
An audit by the trust in 2016 revealed only a 68 per cent attendance rate for consultants at the Margate hospital.
The Independent has seen evidence of a number of repeated errors at the trust including baby deaths and children left brain-damaged by delays in treatment and not recognising the deteriorating heart rates of babies in distress.
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