Colchester Hospital: Midwife admits contributing to death of a baby in her care

Danielle Batih, a junior midwife, started caring for a mother in Colchester Hospital’s delivery suite at 7.30pm on January 19, 2018.

The mother’s baby was born two hours later, but without any signs of life.

Attempts to resuscitate the baby were unsuccessful.

East Suffolk and North Essex Foundation Trust, which runs Colchester Hospital, carried out a serious incident investigation and discovered the baby’s heart rate was not monitored according to national guidance.

It also found examinations were not performed in line with national guidance which meant the second stage of labour was not diagnosed at the onset.

In addition, a partogram - used to measure a baby’s heart rate - was not completed to alert staff to the emerging fetal heart rate abnormalities and failure to detect concerns with the heart meant they were not escalated to the senior team.

Hospital - Colchester Hospital

The mother raised her concerns about Ms Batih’s ability to work on April 10, 2018.

Ten months later case examiners considered her concerns and Ms Batih was accused of contributing to the baby’s death as well as demonstrating poor record keeping and delivering poor care during labour.

Ms Batih, who started working as a junior midwife in 2017, has not worked as a midwife since this happened.

She applied for voluntary removal from the Nursing and Midwifery Council on June 1, 2020.

Within the application Ms Batih admits the allegations and will not reapply to the nursing regulator’s register for at least five years.

Following her hearing last Wednesday (June 16) the council said clinical failings combined with a lack of support were responsible for what happened.

It added: “Ms Batih was a newly qualified midwife and was undertaking a preceptorship programme.

“The Trust’s serious incident investigation identified the senior midwifery team didn’t make allowances for this.”

Normal policy was not followed, particularly in assessing progress in labour, evidence revealed.

It added: “In her response to the case examiners, Ms Batih said it’s now clear she was overwhelmed with the tasks she needed to complete.”

The council has decided to grant Ms Batih’s application for voluntary removal from the register.

The decision comes following a damning inspection of the hospital’s maternity unit, revealed last week, which found new-born babies and mothers were put at risk.

The Care Quality Commission visited the hospital in March and has instructed the trust to make “significant improvements” after finding a catalogue of failures.

Giles Thorpe is Chief Nurse at East Suffolk and North Essex Foundation Trust, which runs Colchester Hospital.

He said: “We would like to offer our sincerest and deepest condolences to the family involved following the very sad loss of Baby A.

“We take the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s findings very seriously and we would like to assure our communities that action has been taken following this tragic incident.

“We are absolutely committed to giving newly qualified midwives the support they need to develop into safe, compassionate and confident practitioners, delivering the highest standards of care for pregnant people and their babies.”