A maternity service which has had elevated neonatal mortality for several years has joined an NHS England programme for extra “support”, it has confirmed to HSJ.
Sandwell and West Birmingham Trust joined NHSE’s maternity and neonatal safety improvement programme in early June, HSJ understands.
The programme aims to help maternity services reduce unwarranted variation for women and babies, and cut rates of maternal and neonatal deaths, stillbirths, brain injuries, and preterm births.
The trust – which has very large deprived and minority ethnic populations – was named in the autumn as 1 of 14 to be examined by a national investigation into maternity and neonatal.
The final report of the review, led by Baroness Valerie Amos, cited serious whistleblower allegations of unsafe local practice and guidelines. This included staff being told to “stay in the room… and watch the baby die” after observing nine minutes of bradycardia, and after attempts to intervene at three and six minutes. A member of staff claimed this was on a risk register, “with the trust willing to take that risk”.
The report said the trust denied this guideline existed, although it has issued an open letter responding to the report, saying it was “deeply sorry” for failures.
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Source: HSJ, 15 July 2026
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