Commenting on Maternity and neonatal services in East Kent: 'Reading the signals' report, Professor Mike Osborn, President of the Royal College of Pathologists, said:
"This report is yet another review of poor NHS maternity care which led to the unnecessary deaths of babies.
Post mortems are vital in helping to understand why a baby has died and for providing answers for parents. The College is aware that paediatric and perinatal pathology workforce concerns are having an impact on maternity services causing additional distress to grieving families. To cope with any increase in demand and to ensure quality of care, a rapid and significant increase in consultant numbers is needed in several different units across the UK.
The College is working with NHS England which has set up the Perinatal Pathology National Group. This group is overseeing all work and action linked to perinatal pathology services; addressing issues with recruitment and training and producing guidance aiming to maximise the resources we have, to benefit the most people.
The 2015 Report of Morecambe Bay maternity and neonatal services by Dr Bill Kirkup recommended that the role of medical examiners should be extended to stillbirths as well as neonatal deaths.
As the lead medical royal college for medical examiners the College supports this view. Medical examiners should work with coroners to investigate stillbirths and neonatal deaths. This would help identify unusual patterns, such as high numbers of deaths at one hospital, which can be a strong indicator of poor care."