Fresh concerns over safety and quality at maternity scandal trust

NHS England took action at a maternity scandal trust over “immediate risks” to women and babies, HSJ can reveal.

Leeds Teaching Hospitals was placed in “enhanced support” because of “quality and safety” concerns in its antenatal and newborn screening services last year, according to a letter released following a freedom of information request.

The programme includes tests for infectious diseases and some genetic disorders during pregnancy, as well as checks for hearing and some conditions after birth.

Senior midwife Donna Ockenden, who earlier this month found hundreds of mothers and babies had suffered avoidable harm in Nottingham, is set to begin a similar exercise in Leeds in the coming months.

An independent review into maternity services at the trust was announced in October, amid concerns that its mortality rates were an outlier.

Now HSJ has learned NHSE’s screening quality assurance service wrote to the provider in September last year to warn of “immediate risks” to women and babies.

This included late or missed interventions and wrongful birth claims, in which disabilities or health conditions that should be detected in pregnancy are not picked up.

NHSE said it was not clear the trust had enough staff to safely deliver the service, or that all eligible women and babies were tested, or that there were “timely processes to put things right… when things go wrong in the screening pathway”.

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Source: HSJ, 7 July 2026