FOI reveals how much the trusts which run Ipswich Hospital and West Suffolk Hospital have paid out for maternity negligence claims
The NHS trust which runs Ipswich Hospital has paid out £28 million in maternity negligence damages in the last four years, figures have revealed.
A Freedom of Information Request (FOI), found East Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (ESNEFT), which also runs Colchester Hospital, settled 48 claims between 2019 and 2023.
Catherine Morgan, chief nurse at ESNEFT, said: "Providing safe, compassionate care for women, babies and their families in east Suffolk and north Essex is our top priority.
“There are around 7,000 births every year in our hospitals, it's so important to us that each of those experiences are positive and families are well supported.”
Mrs Morgan said when there had been failings claims were taken very seriously, with the trust working closely with families and their legal teams to settle claims as quickly as possible.
She said ESNEFT will take forward any lessons learned so it can improve services and is committed to providing families with the best care in its maternity units.
A spokeswoman for ESNEFT said that negligence claims for childbirth and maternity failings often relate to the lifelong care of a child.
She said: “They can run into many millions of pounds for each individual case.”
West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust
The FOI found that West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (WSFT) paid out £418,178 during the same time frame, not including legal costs.
The amount related to 10 claims which a trust spokesman said represented care that was delivered over a 22-year-period, dating back to 2001.
According to the spokeswoman the claims were resolved in the last four years on behalf of WSFT by NHS Resolution, which handles negligence cases for the health service
Karen Newbury, director of midwifery at the trust which runs West Suffolk Hospital and Newmarket Community Hospital, said the thoughts of the WSFT are always with all families affected and echoed previous apologies made by the organisation.
She said: “Our expert and dedicated maternity teams work incredibly hard to provide all our babies and parents with the highest quality and safest care.
“We deliver thousands of babies every single year, but sadly in very, very rare cases things don’t go as planned and can go wrong.”
“In these circumstances we have a strong patient safety culture where our staff sensitively work with families to identify what happened, listen to their experiences, and put plans in place to address issues.
“Our aim is to make our services stronger and safer for future patients and to learn and improve from every case.”
The research has been released in the wake of the Ockenden report, the UK’s first-ever parliamentary inquiry into birth trauma which concluded earlier this year.
Donna Ockenden, senior midwife and review chair, outlined a plan to improve the quality of care and patient safety across maternity services nationally.
