Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust fined for exposing babies to 'serious harm'

Rotherham Hospital failed to spot non-accidental injuries on four babies

A hospital trust has been fined £200,000 for putting four babies at "serious risk"of harm.

Staff at Rotherham Hospital failed to spot non-accidental injuries during admissions, Sheffield Magistrates' Court heard.

District Judge Naomi Redhouse criticised failures in the hospital's systems and processes.

Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the hospital, expressed "deep regret" for "the risk posed".

Health watchdog, the Care Quality Commission (CQC), had earlier highlighted problems with safeguarding training at the trust prior to the babies' admissions between January 2019 and February 2020.

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Ms Redhouse said she accepted the prosecution, brought by the CQC, was based on the harm children had been exposed to rather than any evidence of actual harm as a result of the hospital's actions.

The trust earlier admitted a charge that it exposed service users to "a serious risk of avoidable harm".

The court was told how one eight-day-old baby was brought into the hospital on 23 December 2019 suffering from breathing difficulties and bleeding from the nose and mouth.

It was only on the child's fifth visit to hospital - after a GP raised concerns - that a child safety examination took place, revealing rib and leg fractures that were deemed non-accidental.

Ms Redhouse also heard how a month-old baby brought in with a mouth injury on 20 January 2019 was on a child protection plan but this was not spotted by the paediatric nurse who examined the baby.

This child was twice released from hospital, with no safeguarding concerns, before a scan and other examinations revealed multiple fractures, the court heard.

Prosecutor Ryan Donohue said failings had been identified in areas including policy implementation, training, reporting, auditing and governance.

Eleanor Sanderson, mitigating for the trust, said: "The trust wishes to express to the court its deep regret for the circumstances which gave rise to these offences and the risk posed to those who required safeguarding."

Ms Sanderson added: "The trust accepts that its systems and processes were not operating effectively and not sufficiently embedded."

The judge said CQC inspections from 2015 revealed a history of safeguarding and governance concerns.

'Serious failures'

She said the core of the problem lay in a "failure to embed" good safeguarding practice and policies in frontline services.

Ms Redhouse acknowledged the trust had worked hard to improve and had replaced most of the senior executive posts, including the chief executive.

But she added: "These were serious failures and there is no question that these issues had been part of previous inspections. The attempt to deal with them was simply not enough."

Ms Redhouse said the case was not about failures of individual doctors and nurses working under "immense pressure".

She said she had calculated the fine taking into account figures that showed the trust was facing a £2.7m deficit this year.

After the hearing, Sarah Dronsfield, the CQC's head of hospital inspection, said: "These young children were let down by The Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust's lack of good policies and processes around safeguarding.

"Anyone using health and social care services should have the right to be seen by staff with the right training, who have the right processes in place, to keep them safe."

In addition to the fine, the trust was ordered to pay £33,068 in costs and a £170 victim surcharge.