'Neglect due to gross care failure' over baby death

Royal Stoke University Hospital has made changes following the death

A baby girl died at a hospital as a result of "neglect due to a gross failure of care", according to a coroner's verdict, after she only lived for hours.

Royal Stoke University Hospital blunders included a heart rate monitoring machine being switched off for 159 minutes before the birth of Fatima Khan in June 2023.

Coroner Emma Serrano said she made the finding that had the cardiotocography (CTG) monitoring stayed on, "Fatima would have survived".

The court was told Royal Stoke had made changes following Fatima's death, including on-call weekend consultants now being present during post-17:00 ward rounds, improved communication, better training and new laptops.

The hospital mistakes included poor communication between staff – exacerbated by consultants only being on call from 17:00 because it was a weekend.

The coroner ruled Fatima died from natural causes. The cause of death was given as a hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy, which is an umbrella term for a brain injury.

"It was not possible to say what caused the hypoxia without the CTG readings," the coroner told the inquest.

"Had the CTG stayed on at 7.36pm, things would have been different."

Emergency declared

The baby's mother, Rodaba Iqbal, from Stone, had been sent to the delivery suite after being seen at the maternity assessment unit on 4 June 2023.

She was hooked up to a CTG to monitor the unborn baby's heart rate.

But it was switched off at 19:36 BST and Ms Iqbal was not monitored again until an epidural at 22:15 discovered the baby's heart rate had dropped, the court heard.

The Royal Stoke declared an emergency and a decision was made to monitor the situation for 30 minutes.

But before the 30-minute deadline, it was decided to deliver the baby by a C-section.

Fatima was pronounced dead in the early hours of 5 June.

The coroner said: "Fatima passed away from natural causes, as the hypoxia was caused by something in the body.

"This was contributed by neglect due to a gross failure of care.

"On the balance of probabilities, if not for the gross failure of care, Fatima would have survived."

This news was gathered by the Local Democracy Reporting Service which covers councils and other public service organisations.