Shropshire baby deaths: Ockenden maternity training plan

The government said the £500,000 programme would train 700 NHS maternity and neonatal leaders in England

Hundreds of senior NHS maternity and neonatal staff across England are to get "leadership training" to address the findings of an inquiry into the Shropshire baby deaths scandal.

Staff from 126 NHS trusts and 44 local maternity units will be trained under a £500,000 programme designed to combat a "disconnect between ward and board".

It comes amid a probe into the maternity care of more than 1,800 families in Shropshire.

The project will launch later in 2021.

The inquiry's recommendations to boost NHS maternity care emerged at the end of last year, but those were interim findings. A full report on the results of the Ockenden Review has been pushed back due to its expanded scope.

Led by Donna Ockenden, the probe into Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital (SaTH) Trust is looking at a total of 1,862 cases, included incidents of preventable infant fatalities.

In December, Ms Ockenden highlighted a raft of complaints about standards at SaTHs hospitals which pointed to poor care over two decades that had harmed dozens of women and their babies, and instances of mothers being blamed for their children's deaths.

Announcing the training, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said in addition to forging stronger links between frontline staff and board members, it was also set to create greater collaborative working between nurses, doctors, midwives and obstetricians.

The issue of leadership - including the need to escalate staff concerns and apply lessons from serious incidents - was among the key findings of Ms Ockenden's interim report.

About 700 staff are set to benefit.

Donna Ockenden, a former senior midwife, is leading the review into maternity care in Shropshire

Patient safety minister Nadine Dorries said she wanted the training to "empower" staff to "get the best out of their teams, and deliver safe, world class care to mothers and their babies".

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Alongside the training programme, a new core curriculum for professionals working in maternity and neonatal services is being developed, the DHSC said.

The interim report into SaTH had called for seven "essential actions" to be implemented at maternity units across England.

They have since been transformed into 12 clinical tasks including giving women with complex pregnancies a named consultant and developing a proper process to gather the views of families.

Following publication in December, the chief executive of SaTH said the trust was committed "to implementing all of the report's actions".