Message from Donna Ockenden – Chair of the Independent maternity review
The Shrewsbury and Telford Maternity Review has now concluded and published its final report. The Chair, Donna Ockenden, and her team thank all the families and stakeholders for their cooperation, support and assistance.
As the review has now concluded the maternity review team will not be in a position to deal with any further communications and enquiries. We are now completely focused on providing feedback to our families who are already within the review. You are invited to read the Final Report, a link to which can be found here, if you would like to know more about the conclusions of the Review.
If you are a patient or a family member of a patient and you have a new enquiry about the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, we encourage you to direct these to [email protected]. Alternatively, if you have a complaint about your care please refer to https://www.nhs.uk/using-the-nhs/about-the-nhs/how-to-complain-to-the-nhs
If you have queries or concerns about any other NHS Trusts or services, please contact the Chief Executive’s Office or the PALS department at the correct Trust.
Unfortunately we are not able to answer queries or deal with concerns outside of the original Terms of Reference of our maternity review. We can now only answer emails and other communications from our group of families that are already part of this review.
With thanks and best wishes
Donna Ockenden
Message from the Independent Maternity Review Team
We are currently receiving hundreds of emails in our maternity review inbox and via all forms of social media. Thank you for all your kind and positive messages about our final report. They are very much appreciated by the team.
We have also received multiple speaker enquiries for Donna. We are prioritising contact with (and emails from) our review families and we will respond to all the other queries as soon as we can.
With best wishes The Maternity Review Team
Following the publication of the final Ockenden report, please see below a letter which was sent by Amanda Pritchard, NHS Chief Executive, Ruth May, Chief Nursing Officer and Professor Stephen Powis, National Medical Director, to all Trusts across England on Friday 1st April 2022.
Publication of the Independent Review of maternity services at The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust
Today, Wednesday 30 March 2022, marks the publication of our final report of the Independent Review of maternity services at The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust. Our independent multi – professional team of midwives and doctors including obstetricians, neonatologists, obstetric anaesthetists, a physician, cardiologist, neurologist and others have examined the maternity care and treatment provided to 1,486 families over two decades at the Trust.
This report identifies more than 60 Local Actions for Learning for the Trust and another 15 key Immediate and Essential Actions to improve all maternity services in England, including financing a safe and sustainable maternity and neonatal workforce and ensuring training for the whole maternity team meets the needs of todays maternity services. We state that trust Boards must have oversight and understanding of their maternity services. Trust boards must ensure that they listen to and hear local families and their own staff.
NHS announces £127m maternity boost for patients and families
On 24 March the NHS in England announced a £127 million funding boost for maternity services across the England that will help ensure safer and more personalised care for women and their babies.
Donna Ockenden is a respected and high profile health care leader in the UK and internationally. Her expertise includes the leadership and management of Maternity services and Women and Children’s Divisions and she is well respected within the field of elderly care.
Recent and current work in the field of elderly care includes:
- Development of an Elderly Falls and Fracture Reduction Strategy (across 3 CCGs and a population of circa 1 million);
- Development of quality and contract standards for nursing homes across 2 CCGs;
- Recently published an extensive Governance review (July 2018) of the events leading to the closure of Tawel Fan ward in December 2013 and a review of the current Governance arrangements in Older People’s Mental Health in Betsi Cadwaldr University Health Board;
- In February 2021 Donna Ockenden has been named as a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufacture and Commerce. The accolade has been awarded to Donna Ockenden for her work which has touched the lives of many throughout her career. Her work has been a catalyst for change to improve the quality of care for a broad section of people who use healthcare services across the UK;
Other recent work includes:
- Current Chair originally reviewing 23 maternity cases of concern at the Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust. The review has been commissioned by the Secretary of State for Health. Following a much larger number of cases of potential concern coming forward and confirmation that the original review was to be extended, Donna has increased the numbers within the expert team to include an anaesthetist, infection prevention, an ambulance expert, two paediatricians and a physician as well as increasing the number of midwives, neonatologists and obstetricians.
- Completed a review of the leadership team, effectiveness and function in a pharmacy department of a large NHS Foundation Trust in the South of England where all the recommendations made by Donna Ockenden were accepted by the Trust Executive team;
- Undertook and completed a review of the leadership, management and effectiveness of the multidisciplinary team in a large Emergency Department where the recommendations made by Donna Ockenden were all accepted by the Trust Executive Directors;
- Successful working across multiple CCG’s and a large acute provider Trust in the development of an agreed pathway for paediatric emergency care;
- Development of a number of Paediatric workstreams and successfully agreed a structure for implementation of those workstreams across an STP involving multiple commissioners and providers and complex commissioning and working relationships;
- Support of a CCG in ensuring safe provision of care with a year long ‘deep dive’ into (and ongoing review of) a large maternity service following a number of maternal deaths and serious incidents;
- Completion of a review into housekeeping services across the 3 sites of a large Trust where staff morale was low and employee relationships generally were of concern to the Executive team. Multiple recommendations were made to and accepted by the Executive team.
Donna’s area of particular interest, across all clinical specialties, is the leadership of multi-disciplinary teams. She is adept at working with a wide range of medical, nursing and midwifery colleagues. Her extensive experience consists of:
- working with teams in difficulty or crisis
- leading services against a background of extensive reconfiguration
Being highly skilled in supporting services Donna can demonstrate broad learning from clinical incidents and service user complaints. She also has experience of providing advice on the timely resolution of complex or seemingly intractable clinical complaints or serious incidents.
Donna has over a decade of experience in leading large and complex maternity and gynaecology departments and over five years’ experience of leading entire Women and Children’s Divisions. This includes the management of the various consultant groups and professions allied to medicine within the Division.
Donna has a comprehensive knowledge and practical experience of supporting services in difficulty with the ability to rapidly stabilise them; at the same time developing a blue print for safe, sustainable and cost effective clinical care. She has worked on a number of projects with externally appointed ‘Turnaround Directors’ and has a wealth of experience in delivering on cost improvement plans whilst ensuring the delivery of safe and effective care.
In addition Donna has a of history of developing successful and sustainable recruitment and retention campaigns across all professions and has delivered these successfully against a backdrop of services with historically high vacancies and turnover.
Donna is now available for full time and part time advisory and consultancy work across a number of areas and clinical specialties. Donna has recent and current experience of working with both commissioners and providers and is therefore cognisant of both perspectives in a challenging economic environment.