Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust received the money under the NHS Maternity Incentive Scheme, which rewards hospitals that meet 10 key safety standards. These include listening to patients, maintaining safe staffing levels, and properly investigating deaths.
For the past two years, the trust reported that it had met all 10 measures and was paid £4,887,084. But a subsequent investigation by NHS Resolution, the health service’s litigation authority, found the standards had not been met. The trust has now repaid the full amount.
Damning Inspection Report
In June, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) gave maternity services at the Leeds trust the lowest rating of “inadequate,” warning that mothers and babies were being exposed to “significant risk.”
That finding prompted NHS Resolution to ask the trust to review its submissions to the Maternity Incentive Scheme. The re-examination confirmed that not all standards had been achieved, forcing repayment.
Families Call for Independent Inquiry
For some families, the repayment does not go far enough. Fiona Winser Ramm, who lost her daughter Aliona in 2020 following what an inquest described as “gross failures” in care, said the situation underlines the need for a full inquiry.
“The repayment of the award is long overdue and should go back even further,” she said. “This provides yet more evidence for the need for an independent inquiry into the Leeds trust, led by senior midwife Donna Ockenden.”
Winser Ramm joined other bereaved parents in meeting Health Secretary Wes Streeting last week to press for a formal investigation. Streeting has so far declined to order an inquiry, but families remain hopeful that change will come.
A Wider National Problem
The Maternity Incentive Scheme, introduced in 2018 by former health secretary Jeremy Hunt, has faced repeated criticism. Several other trusts, including Shrewsbury and Telford, Morecambe Bay, East Kent and Nottingham, have also received payouts only to later repay the money after being found non compliant.
An analysis by NHS Resolution in July revealed that 24 trusts have repaid money over the first four years of the scheme, with 18 doing so more than once.
“Families across the country have raised concerns about the flaws of self assessment in this scheme,” said Winser Ramm. “If trusts are unable to accurately report their compliance, how can we be confident that similar misreporting is not happening elsewhere?”
Funding for Improvements
Following the repayment, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust has applied for and received £2.1 million from a separate maternity improvement fund run by NHS Resolution.
Chief Medical Officer Magnus Harrison admitted the trust was not fully compliant.
“We have now been allocated £2.1 million to support our action plan as part of our Maternity and Neonatal Improvement Programme,” he said in a statement to the BBC
