Review into baby’s death after parents accuse health watchdog of dishonesty

Jack and Sarah Hawkins called for an NHS trust to be prosecuted following the death of their daughter Harriet.

Jack and Sarah Hawkins’s baby daughter Harriet died following maternity failings (Callum Parke/PA) (PA Archive)

A review is being launched to investigate the death of a baby after her parents accused the health watchdog of being “dishonest” and deleting emails when it failed to prosecute an NHS trust.

Dr Jack and Sarah Hawkins, whose daughter Harriet was stillborn at Nottingham City Hospital in April 2016, have been campaigning to expose systemic failures at the Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUHT).

Eight years after Harriet died, the Care Quality Commission said it will conduct an external review to look into its handling of the case, as an investigation report in 2017 concluded that Harriet’s death was “almost certainly preventable”, but the CQC did not prosecute the NUHT.

The couple said they have “concerns” about this review although they think it is a “step in the right direction”.

Dr Hawkins said: “We’ve got enough experience of people doing reviews that are designed to not find the truth and all the truth.

“They shouldn’t be commissioning it because they own it and they influence whether they want to believe it or not.”

In an ITVX documentary released in June, Maternity: Broken Trust, Dr and Mrs Hawkins criticised the CQC for what they describe as “blatant untruths” after they did not prosecute the NUHT for its failures in Harriet’s case.

In a right of reply, the CQC defended the decision not to prosecute by saying the NUHT had not declared Harriet’s case as a “serious incident” within the three-year period that prosecutions can be made.

It has been absolutely horrific, like banging our heads off a brick wall. We were telling them and no one was listening

Sarah Hawkins, Harriet's mother

But Dr and Mrs Hawkins say they have copies of emails between the CQC and NUHT in 2018, which show they were aware of the failings within the three-year period.

The CQC denied being able to find this correspondence, leading Dr and Mrs Hawkins to question whether the emails had been deleted from the organisation’s systems.

Mrs Hawkins said: “It has been absolutely horrific, like banging our heads off a brick wall. We were telling them and no one was listening.

“They have failed us, and not just us, lots of other families”.

A CQC spokesperson said: “We will be commissioning an external review into the CQC’s knowledge and handling of information relating to Harriet Hawkins’ death, and our engagement with the Hawkins family in response to concerns about the care received at Nottingham City Hospital.

“We will be working with Jack and Sarah Hawkins directly to develop the terms of reference for this review and to agree next steps.”

The external CQC review will happen while the largest review in NHS history is being led by senior midwife Donna Ockenden looking into the failings of NUHT maternity services, involving hundreds of families in Nottinghamshire.