Staff at Kent NHS trust warned of ‘harrowing report’ into preventable baby deaths
The chief executive of an NHS trust at the centre of a maternity scandal where there were at least seven preventable baby deaths has warned staff to prepare for a “harrowing report” into what happened.
In an email seen by Sky News, East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust chief executive Tracey Fletcher told her staff to expect a “harrowing report which will have a profound and significant impact on families and colleagues, particularly those working in maternity services”.
An independent investigation into the trust, stretching back over a decade, will be published next week and is expected to expose a catalogue of serious failings.
It is also expected to say the avoidable baby deaths happened because recommendations that were made following reports into other NHS maternity scandals were not implemented.
The East Kent review is led by obstetrician Dr Bill Kirkup, who also chaired the investigation into mother and baby deaths in Morecambe in 2015.
The report was delayed following the Queen’s death, prolonging the agony for grieving parents who are desperate to learn the truth about their children’s deaths.
Dawn Powell’s newborn son Archie died in February 2019 aged four days.
In an emotional interview, Mrs Powell told Sky News she will never get over the loss of her son, who would be alive today if she or Archie had been given a routine antibiotic.
“For families like us, where your child has been taken away, you have forever got that hole in your life that you will never heal,” Mrs Powell said.
A delay in treating Archie’s infection led to multiple organ failure
Archie and his twin sister Evalene were born at the Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother hospital in Margate, Kent.
Archie became ill shortly after birth. Medics treating him failed to spot he was suffering from a common infection, group B streptococcus, despite showing all the symptoms.
His mother said: “We now know it was completely avoidable, that people weren’t picking up the signs, common signs that any trained nurse, midwife and doctors would spot through the grunting, being unable to maintain body temperature, irritability and other factors. Clear signs.”
Archie and his twin sister Evalene
Archie was eventually rushed to St Thomas’ hospital in London to receive expert care. But the delay in treating his infection caused catastrophic brain damage, leading to multiple organ failure.
“I sat next to him and held his hand, and he was actually opening his eyes. And I was talking to him and just felt the lightest squeeze on my finger. But then from that day, they said he never opened his eyes again,” Mrs Powell said.
“Having to go through the process of him being taken off life support, our daughters helping him to do his handprints and footprints because it’s the only thing that we’re going to have left.
“It was just me and my husband in the room when they finally took him off the last bit of life support and then me holding him once he went.”
Mrs Powell added: “I held a lot of guilt at the beginning because I thought it was partly my fault for what happened because I was the one carrying the group B strep that he first caught and I’ve always held a lot of guilt for that, but that just grows into anger towards people that didn’t do their jobs.
“They have put us in this situation for the rest of our lives.”
The Kirkup report will be published on Wednesday 19 October.
It’s just gone 7.30pm – and outside a synagogue in north Manchester, we’ve heard the shofar, a ceremonial horn, being blown to mark the end of the long day of prayers.
The streets, which had been so quiet all day, fill with people and families.
We’re just minutes away from where the attack took place.
But people haven’t had their phones on in synagogue – and we find ourselves in the slightly surreal position of having to tell people what happened to members of their community, just a few roads away.
Manchester synagogue latest: Suspect in killing named
Rachel gasped as she heard the news
“Did many people get hurt?” Rachel, in her 70s, asks me.
I tell her two have died.
She gasps and says: “My gosh. It’s the holiest day of the year.
“Very, very frightening. We’re not safe.”
Read more:
Witnesses describe how attack unfolded
What we know about synagogue attack
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Earlier in the day on these streets, we saw additional police patrols, with officers telling us they were here to reassure members of the public.
But people are accustomed to seeing security here.
Both paid and volunteer security staff, in their hi-vis jackets, are a permanent fixture outside every synagogue.
It’s to help protect a community that, even before this attack, has felt under threat.
‘The security is not the solution,’ this man said
“The security is not the solution,” one man tells me as he heads home from prayers. “Those who really want to do [something like this], they will do it with lots of security, it doesn’t matter.”
Among everyone we spoke to, there was a sense of shock at what had happened, but perhaps not necessarily surprise amid rising acts of antisemitism in the UK.
David Yehudi
David Yehudi and the rabbi he studied with said it had felt like a long time coming.
“As a grandchild of a Holocaust survivor, I feel as if this is before 1935 again,” he says. “That’s the overwhelming feeling all over the world.”
The rabbi asked ‘where is the United Nations?’
The rabbi adds: “The United Nations was set up with the intention of ‘never again’, and where is the United Nations? In terms of the global support against antisemitism. It’s just not there anymore. We are as unsafe as we were before the war.”
It is a shocking thing to hear, on this, the most solemn of days.
The UK’s chief rabbi has described the terror attack at a synagogue in Manchester as “the tragic result of Jew hatred”.
Two Jewish men were killed outside Heaton Park Synagogue on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.
The attacker, named by police as Jihad al Shamie, a British citizen of Syrian descent, was shot dead by police seven minutes after officers were alerted to the incident.
Britain’s chief rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis. Pic: PA
Sir Ephraim Mirvis said it was “the day we hoped we would never see, but which deep down, we knew would come”.
He celebrated the “courageous leadership” of rabbi Daniel Walker, who has been praised for his efforts to keep his congregation safe as the terrorist tried to get inside.
In a post on X, Sir Ephraim wrote: “For so long we have witnessed an unrelenting wave of Jew hatred on our streets, on campuses, on social media and elsewhere – this is the tragic result.
“This is not only an assault on the Jewish community, but an attack on the very foundations of humanity and the values of compassion, dignity and respect which we all share.”
He added: “May the victims’ memories be for a blessing and may the injured be granted a swift recovery.
“I pray that this tragedy strengthens our collective resolve to confront antisemitism, in all its guises, once and for all.”
Read more:
Witnesses describe how attack unfolded
What we know about synagogue attack
The Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council said the attack “was sadly something we feared was coming” at a time of rising antisemitism in the UK.
They said: “We are devastated at the loss of two members of our Jewish community, and our thoughts are with their families, those who are injured and receiving treatment, and all those who have been affected by this act of antisemitic terror.”
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Thanking the government, the King, the prime minister and senior politicians for their support, they added: “At this dark time, these acts of solidarity will be a comfort to our community.
“At a time of rising antisemitism in the UK, this attack was sadly something we feared was coming. We call on all those in positions of power and influence to take the required action to combat hatred against Jewish people.”
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‘We’re not safe, we’re not safe’
The chief executive of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, Olivia Marks-Woldman, said antisemitism “has no place in our society” and “we must confront it whenever it arises”.
“We are horrified by today’s antisemitic attack in Manchester. Taking place on Yom Kippur, a moment of atonement and reflection, it is a truly horrendous event,” she said.
“Our thoughts are first and foremost with the victims and with the Jewish community in Manchester and across the UK, who will understandably feel shocked and afraid.”
The president of the Conference of European Rabbis, Pinchas Goldschmidt, called for more to be done to “stamp out murderous ideologies”.
He added: “Jews in Manchester, England, woke up this morning to pray, and were murdered in their own synagogue. Governments from the world over should spare us the statements about fighting antisemitism and instead ensure Jews are safe.”
Prince William has said “change is on my agenda” when he becomes king, in his most open and personal explanation to date about how he sees his future role and the future of the monarchy.
The revelations come during a discussion with Hollywood actor Eugene Levy as they were filming at Windsor Castle for Levy’s travel series The Reluctant Traveller.
When asked if the monarchy will be shifting in a slightly different direction when he becomes king, William says: “I think it’s safe to say that change is on my agenda.
“Change for good, and I embrace that and I enjoy that change. I don’t fear it, that’s the bit that excites me – the idea of being able to bring some change. Not overly radical change, but changes that I think need to happen.”
Pic: Apple TV+
What could be described as William’s manifesto for the monarchy comes out in an unexpectedly candid interview with the Schitt’s Creek star.
The Prince of Wales also opens up about being “overwhelmed” by family problems last year – as both Kate and the King were diagnosed with cancer – and his desire to try to “make sure you don’t do the same mistakes as your parents”.
Describing how he is driven by both his passion to protect his family and his desire to ensure everything is in place when Prince George one day becomes king, he says: “I want to create a world in which my son is proud of what we do, in a world and a job that actually does impact people’s lives for the better.
“That is caveated with, I hope we don’t go back to some of the practices in the past that Harry and I grew up in. And I’ll do everything I can to make sure we don’t regress in that situation.”
Pic: Apple TV+
On being monarch one day, he says: “It’s not something I wake up in the morning and think about.”
But in an earlier part of the programme, he does talk more about his desire to potentially shake things up, albeit with a caveat.
He says: “I think it’s very important that tradition stays, and tradition has a huge part in all of this, but there’s also points where you look at tradition and go, is that still fit for purpose today?”
In an incredibly open admission about sometimes feeling overwhelmed, especially last year – “the hardest year” – he also appears to reveal a man now more at peace with the role that lies ahead for him.
Eugene Levy and Prince William. Pic: Apple TV+
Speaking in St George’s Hall inside the castle, he says: “Stuff to do with family overwhelms me, quite a bit.
“You know, worry or stress around the family side of things, that does overwhelm me quite a bit. But in terms of doing the job and things like that, I don’t feel too overwhelmed by that. Not now anyway.”
His own childhood, and how that has impacted his thoughts on the media, also come across clearly, at times appearing to echo his brother Prince Harry’s thoughts on the press and drive to protect his own family from what they went through as children.
William, front, pictured with his mother, Princess Diana, and Harry in 1985. Pic: Reuters
As he talks to Levy in a pub in Windsor, William says: “Growing up, I saw that with my parents … the media were so insatiable back then.
“And if you let that creep in, the damage it can do to your family life is something that I vowed would never happen to my family.”
Those close to the prince believe the interview is the most publicly vulnerable they’ve ever seen him on camera.
The special episode of The Reluctant Traveller With Eugene Levy on Apple TV+ with William airs from today.
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