Bereaved mother whose baby died due to NHS blunders rejected by Health Secretary Wes Streeting – despite promises to improve maternity care, he sent ‘abusive’ cut-and-paste response when she asked for a meeting

A grieving mother whose baby died as a result of NHS blunders has criticized Health Secretary Wes Streeting for his “offensive” cut-and-paste response to her request to meet him.

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

Before the election, Mr Streeting said the shortcomings of maternity care left him with “fears in my stomach” and vowed to hear the concerns of relatives.

But when Mrs Fowler and her husband Rob Miller wrote him a letter in August asking him to meet the Sussex relatives, she got the jitters.

The “flippant and insensitive” response, which was not even signed by Mr Streeting, did not acknowledge the couple’s concerns, she added.

Robert Miller and Katie Fowler with their daughter Abigail Fowler Miller, who died two days after birth at the Royal Sussex County Hospital (RSCH) in Brighton in January 2022. An inquest concluded she would probably have survived if her mother had received medical treatment earlier

Before the election, Wes Streeting promised to meet with relatives to hear their concerns

Abigail was one of nine babies who died between 2021 and 2023 due to failings at University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust

Instead, it contained irrelevant information, much of it copied and pasted from previous DHSC media statements.

In one section, the letter inappropriately reassured Mrs Fowler – whose daughter died when she was two days old as a result of preventable damage suffered during her birth – that infant loss certificates were now available for miscarriages.

The words used are taken from a press release issued in February under former Health Minister Victoria Atkins.

Furious, Mrs Fowler said: ‘Mr Streeting’s comments about maternity care had led me to believe he realizes how urgent this is.

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

She added: ‘We’ve heard a lot of talk, but babies and mothers will continue to die and be seriously injured due to mistakes and poor standards in maternity care unless we take immediate action. This must now be treated as a priority.”

The letter also told the grieving mother, who nearly died during childbirth 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 published in a media statement from Wes Streeting last month, when he described a report showing that avoidable harm was at risk of being ‘normalised’ in NHS maternity units as a ’cause for national shame’.

The letter also reused part of a statement that Health Minister Karin Symth had read out in response to a question about a shortage of neonatal nurses in the House of Commons in August.

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

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

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

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

Nisha Sharma, a lead attorney at Slater and Gordon who represents the couple and several other families affected by pregnancy issues, said families were still waiting for Streeting to address the issue.

‘Families whose babies have died as a result of a failed pregnancy are appealing to the Minister of Health for help, but are getting nowhere.

“We rely on Mr Streeting and his department to take action, and it really cannot wait any longer,” she said, urging him to meet families directly “so he can look [them] in the eyes and see their pain’.

In an earlier statement, University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust said it had made positive changes to improve maternity care, including recruiting more midwives, improving triage processes and changing the way families were supported.

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 spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care said: “Our sincere condolences go to Katie Fowler and Robert Miller. We apologize unreservedly if our response does not reflect the enormity of Katie and Robert’s loss.

‘Pregnancy remains a priority for this government and the department has been in touch to arrange a meeting with the Secretary of State.’