NHS must learn lessons

EVERY time a patient puts themselves into the care of the NHS, they should have complete confidence in the quality of service. The issue of trust between patients and medical experts is particularly vital when it comes to maternity services, which deliver 70,000 babies a year in Yorkshire.

Confidence in the care provided by the Wakefield-based Mid Yorkshire trust has already been knocked by several cases where services fell seriously short.

The trust was rightly criticised following the death last year of a baby at Dewsbury and District Hospital, who was born some 61 hours after his mother’s waters broke, because of a shortage of midwives and beds.