Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust has been fined £800,000 after failings in the care of a baby who died after 23 minutes in 2019. The NHS admitted her death could’ve been prevented if staff had delivered her earlier. They failed in their duty of care by missing clear problems and opportunities to save the life of baby Wynter.
Sarah Andrews, who was pregnant with her baby girl Wynter started having contractions on the 9 September 2019, but was only admitted to hospital on 14 September 2019, six days later. When she arrived, there were clear clinical signs indicating that she was in established labour, but she was misdiagnosed as being in the latent (earlier) phase. An inquest has heard there were missed opportunities to progress Sarah’s labour and commence one-to-one care that was needed.
When Sarah arrived at the hospital, the maternity unit was busy and short staffed. The coroner, Laurinda Bower, said there were “systemic issues” in the maternity care that Sarah received. This included that when doctors changed shifts, information on Sarah’s patient history was not handed over properly. A major error was where one particular doctor did not pick up on concerns raised by midwives about a possible infection and failed to offer an examination of the mother.