Bereaved mum whose baby died due to NHS blunders snubbed by Health Secretary Wes Streeting – despite vows to improve maternity care, he sent ‘insulting’ cut-and-paste response when she asked for meeting

A grieving mum whose baby died due to NHS blunders has slammed health secretary Wes Streeting for his ‘insulting’ cut-and-paste response to her request to meet him. 

Katie Fowler’s daughter Abigail was one of nine newborns to fall victim to care failures at University Hospitals Sussex NHS Trust between 2021 and 2023.

Before the election Mr Streeting said maternity service shortcoming caused him ‘anxiety… in the pit of my stomach’ and vowed to hear bereaved parents’ concerns.

But when Ms Fowler and husband Rob Miller wrote to him in August asking him to meet bereaved Sussex families, she got the brush-off.

The ‘flippant and insensitive’ reply, which wasn’t even signed by Mr Streeting, failed to acknowledge the concerns raised by the couple, she added.

 Instead, it included irrelevant information, most of which had been copied and pasted from previous DHSC media statements.

In one section, the letter inappropriately reassured Ms Fowler — whose daughter died at two days old due to avoidable harm sustained during her birth — that baby loss certificates were now available for miscarriages. 

The words used were copied from a press release issued in February, under previous health secretary Victoria Atkins.

Furious Ms Fowler said: ‘Mr Streeting’s comments about maternity services had led me to believe he realises how urgent this is. 

‘So, I was incredibly disappointed to receive such a flippant and impersonal response and it has made me question what the Government’s plans to fix maternity services actually are.’

She added: ‘We’ve heard a lot of talk, but babies and mums will continue to die and be seriously harmed because of errors and poor standards in maternity care unless we see immediate action. This needs to be treated as a priority now.’  

The letter also told the bereaved mother, who nearly died during her labour and ended up in a coma in intensive care, that ‘childbirth should not be something women fear or look back on with trauma’. 

These words were first issued in a media statement by Wes Streeting last month, when he described as a ’cause for national shame’ a report which showed preventable harm risked becoming ‘normalised’ in NHS maternity units.

The letter also reused part of a statement read by health minister Karin Symth in response to a question about a shortage of neonatal nurses in the Commons in August.

And it praised the couple’s work for a charity which has no connection with them.

Abigail Fowler Miller died in January 2022, two days after she was born by an emergency C-section performed in a foyer at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton. Her mother Katie Fowler had gone into cardiac arrest in a taxi on the way into hospital, after midwives relying on over-the-phone assessments missed warning signs she had massive internal bleeding during labour.

An inquest concluded Abigail would likely have survived if her mother had received medical care earlier.

Her parents have joined other bereaved families in calling for a national inquiry into maternity services, as well as an independent investigation into University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust.

Nisha Sharma, a principal lawyer at Slater and Gordon who is representing the couple and multiple other families affected by maternity failings, said families were still waiting for Mr Streeting to start dealing with the issue.

‘Families whose babies have died as a result of maternity failures are appealing to the Health Secretary for help but are getting nowhere.

‘We are relying on Mr Streeting and his department to take action, and it really can’t wait any longer,’ she said, urging him to meet families directly ‘so he can look [them] in the eye and see their pain’.

In a previous statement, University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust said it had made positive changes to improve maternity services, including recruiting more midwives, improving triage processes and changing how it supported families.

After the Mail contacted the DHSC for comment, a representative contacted Ms Fowler and Mr Miller to discuss arranging a future meeting with Mr Streeting.

A Department for Health and Social Care spokesperson said: ‘Our heartfelt sympathies are with Katie Fowler and Robert Miller. We apologise unreservedly for our response failing to reflect the enormity of Katie and Robert’s loss.

‘Maternity remains a priority for this government and the department has reached out to arrange a meeting with the Secretary of State.’