In 2016, Kayleigh Griffiths experienced the heartbreaking loss of her baby daughter, Pippa, due to shortcomings in maternity care in Shropshire. Little did she know the number of times she would have to recount her distressing story at subsequent medical visits.
She has been advocating for an \”Ockenden alert\” to be attached to her medical records— a concept that emerged during discussions with other bereaved families.
Donna Ockenden, the lead midwife of a 2022 investigation into the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (Sath), revealed that with improved care, over 200 infants and nine mothers might have avoided tragedy.
Mrs. Griffiths hopes that the alert can be extended to additional families impacted, eventually reaching a national level.
“It allows health professionals to recognize the alert and understand the implications for us,” she explained.
“It might encourage them to invest a little more time going through our records to grasp our history, preventing us from repeatedly narrating the same heartbreaking account, which only triggers more trauma.”
Pippa was her second child, and she succumbed to a Group B Strep infection. A coroner determined in 2017 that her passing could have been averted.
At the inquest, Mrs. Griffiths was expecting her third child, who is now eight years old. Upon his birth, he was briefly placed in neonatal care, a fact she was not informed of prior to visiting him, which she described as ”
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