A report on the failure of maternity care at an NHS trust has again been delayed.
Lead midwife Donna Ockenden has investigated hundreds of cases where mothers and babies may have been harmed at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SaTh).
Her report was due for publication on March 22 after being postponed from December.
In a letter to the families, Ms Ockenden said the date “can no longer take place”.
She added that there were “parliamentary processes” that needed to take place before the final report could be released.
The delay was a “massive kick in the pit of the stomach”, according to a tweet by Rhiannon Davieswhose daughter Kate died in March 2009, hours after she was born.
Ms Davies and her partner Richard Stanton have campaigned for the review, along with Kayleigh and Colin Griffiths, whose daughter Pippa died in 2016.
A written statement by Patient Safety Secretary Maria Caulfield to Parliament on Tuesday said the NHS had been working to get compensation coverage.
She said this would cover any potential legal action after the report’s release and had been agreed in principle by the Treasury Department.
Ms Ockenden’s team have examined 1,862 cases and it is believed to be the largest ever review of maternity care in the NHS.
Their interim report, released in December 2020, found that some mothers were blamed for the deaths of their babies.
In her letter about the delay, Ms Ockenden said she and her team were “also very disappointed with the delay” and were working to agree on a new release date.
SaTh previously said it was fully cooperating with the review team, adding that most of the actions raised in an interim report had already been completed.
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