UK healthcare watchdog ‘covered up’ death report

London: The lives of at least two babies could have been saved had the healthcare watchdog investigated a scandal-hit hospital properly, it was claimed Tuesday night.

James Titcombe, whose son Joshua was one of 16 babies thought to have died unnecessarily at Barrow-in-Furness general hospital, said the Care Quality Commission had ignored his pleas for an investigation.

Two years later, the regulator inspected the hospitals and gave them a clean bill of health, despite the concerns Titcombe and others had raised about poor care on the maternity unit. A damning report Wednesday revealed the CQC’s 2010 inspection was inadequate. It also states that bosses may have tried to cover up this fact by demanding that key evidence about the inspection’s failings be deleted.

Police are now thought to be investigating the deaths of up to 16 babies at the same unit.

Two of those deaths occurred after the CQC’s 2010 inspection - and Titcombe believes they could have been avoided if the CQC had investigated properly in the first place. He said yesterday: “We’ve been campaigning since Joshua’s death and we’ve slowly discovered that the problem spread much wider than just our case.

“We couldn’t get anyone to investigate. There must be thousands of other people in the same situation as us.

“The NHS is rotten to the core. Joshua bled to death at Furness General Hospital when he was nine days old following a series of blunders.

His death - which was needless and “horrible” - was the result of a common infection which he picked up from his mother and which could have been cured by antibiotics.

Titcombe and his wife Hoa, 36, said they urged staff to treat Joshua with antibiotics but they were told he seemed well and did not need to see a doctor.

The project manager, who has two daughters, said they were told the paediatrician was “too busy” to deal with them.

Eventually, the baby was so ill that he had to be airlifted to two other hospitals and he later bled to death when the infection spread to his lungs and caused a haemorrhage.

In 2011, an inquest into the tragedy found that Joshua’s medical notes may have been deliberately destroyed to cover up mistakes.

The coroner concluded that there were a number of “missed opportunities” to save Joshua’s life in 2008 and his parents believe he would still be alive had he received proper care.

The inquest sparked a police inquiry, which was later widened to include other deaths at the trust.

Titcombe and his wife, a charity worker, have been fighting for five years to find out why mistakes were made in the care of their son.

After Joshua’s death, Titcombe asked the Care Quality Commission to investigate the hospital.

But his concerns - and those of other patients - were ignored and it was not until 2011 that an inquest into the death was held.

They believe that if the regulator had paid proper attention to their concerns, it may have been able to prevent further baby deaths.