Furness hospital baby deaths: NMC admits delays

The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) has said its failure to promptly investigate concerns about midwives at Furness General Hospital may have put mothers and babies at risk.

Eleven babies and one mother died at the hospital in Barrow, Cumbria, between 2004 and 2013.

Concerns from families and police were first raised in 2008 but the NMC took up to eight years to investigate.

It has now apologised and said it missed "multiple opportunities" to act.

In May a Professional Standards Authority (PSA) review found the NMC failed to react quickly enough to concerns from police and families.

But speaking to Channel 4 News after the review was published, Philip Graf, the chair of the NMC, said "public safety was not put at risk" by the delays.

However, in an apparent U-turn, Mr Graf issued a fresh statement on Wednesday saying that was not the case.

The statement, which claimed "in 2012 the organisation was failing at every level", said: "We didn't get things right.

"We did not listen to families or act on credible evidence from them and others.

"Multiple opportunities to take action were missed, we didn't investigate concerns and when we did, we took too long. We are very sorry for this.

"Due to our failures to act and the resulting delays in our investigations and hearings, some midwives continued to practise who may not have been safe to do so and mothers and babies may have been at risk of harm during this period."

Concerns at the hospital were first raised after the death of nine-day-old Joshua Titcombe in 2008 from sepsis.

Joshua's father James Titcombe said: "The comments from Philip Graf last week stating that safety wasn't put at risk were truly shocking and suggestive of a failure to understand the PSA report at a most basic level.

"However, the fact that the NMC have now finally admitted that their failures at Morecambe Bay [NHS Trust] put the lives of mothers and babies at risk is welcome."