A special group that was set up to oversee changes to the UHMBT's hospitals following recommendations made in the Kirkup Report has been formally "stepped down".
It follows the publication of a new report detailing the progress that's been made to implement recommendations of the Morecambe Bay Investigation, which has been presented to the Trust.
Dr David Walker, Medical Director, UHMBT, said: “The ‘stepping down’ of our Trust Kirkup Programme is by no means the end, and it should not be interpreted that we think all the work to improve is complete."
The Kirkup Report followed the deaths of one mother and eleven babies at Furness General Hospital, and was published in March last year.
It made 44 recommendations to prevent a repeat of the failures that led to the deaths. 18 of those were for the Trust's local hospitals, with the remainder being for the wider NHS.
Now, the ‘One Year On' document provides a summary of what's changed so far - as well as what's planned for the future.
The recommendations included reviewing the skills, knowledge, competencies and professional duties of care of certain groups of staff within Women and Children’s and critical care services.
They also included meeting any identified training needs from the review, and better teamwork.
UHMBT Chief Executive Jackie Daniel, said: “The publication of the Kirkup Report was a watershed moment, not just for the Trust but for those families and communities that have been so tragically let down by past failures.
“It was important that we didn’t just treat the recommendations as a ‘check list’ of actions, because we owed it to everyone involved to demonstrate we would truly learn from it.
“Our 'One Year On - How we implemented the Kirkup Report’ document contains many instances of changes and improved practice, examples of innovative approaches to the problems of our particular geography, and describes how we viewed the recommendations as the starting point for change, not the end point.
“It would be easy to just focus on the big ticket items, such as the approved plans for a new £11m Maternity Unit at Furness General Hospital (FGH), but a tremendous amount of work has taken place in all areas to meet the recommendations so far, and I’d like to thank the staff, stakeholders and service users for their support. A special thanks needs to go to those families who lost loved ones that have supported us throughout – your bravery and commitment to helping us to improve things further for the benefit of local people have been inspiring.
“Whilst I am pleased that we have met all the recommendations so far, there is still a lot of work still left to do. Our strategy is one of continual improvement, and I look forward to sharing updates on further progress throughout the year.”
Dr David Walker, added: “The specific project structure and governance arrangements we put into place to respond fully to the Kirkup Report, were always intended to be short term. This allowed us to put the resource and focus into doing what needed to be done in the best way we could to meet the recommendations in the timescales given.
“We have now implemented all the recommendations in full, with the exception of the new Maternity Unit at FGH by December 2017. This means that this specific project structure is no longer needed. The remaining recommendation and the continued monitoring of the changes and improvements to ensure they are sustained will now be done as part of normal Trust ‘day-to-day’ activity through our existing governance structures and committees.”
You can read the full report here.