Baby Loss

Jess Brown-Fuller Excerpts

Monday 13th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[John Milne (Horsham) (LD)]

I pay tribute to all the moving speeches we have heard so far tonight.

There are few losses in life more devastating than that of a child—it is every parent’s greatest fear—but when a baby dies just as life is beginning, at the very moment when joy and expectation are at their highest, the pain is all the harder to bear. Chloe and Toby from my constituency of Horsham, along with nine other Sussex families, have gone through this unimaginable experience. Their babies died in the care of the University Hospitals Sussex NHS trust between 2021 and 2023. Chloe and Toby are not natural campaigners; it is not something they ever expected or wanted to do. They are simply grieving parents looking for truth, accountability and, above all, change.

University Hospitals Sussex, like public services in general, is under immense pressure. Staff are working in a system stretched beyond capacity. I want to acknowledge the efforts of the countless clinicians, midwives and support staff who show up day in, day out. They, too, have been let down by the system; it is not just the families. Nevertheless, the fact remains that something has gone seriously wrong. Nine babies have died in circumstances that the families believe were avoidable, and thus far they have not had satisfactory answers.

Fundamentally, this is about trust. Trust needs to be restored. For that to happen, we first need to fully understand what went wrong. I understand that things can go wrong in any profession—and my own father was an obstetrician—but, unfortunately, in obstetrics the consequences can be devastating. I very much support the words of the right hon. Member for Godalming and Ash (Sir Jeremy Hunt), who said that this is not about launching some kind of witch hunt, which could actually get in the way of preventing further tragedies in the future, because the key thing, and what we need to focus on, is avoiding blame and openly sharing and fixing problems. However, we must shine a light on past mistakes.

In Sussex, Members of Parliament from across the House are working together on this issue, and I look forward to continuing those conversations with my colleagues locally later this week. However, the trust itself acknowledges that improvements are needed, and I welcome the work already under way to make maternity care safer. However, if this review is to succeed and to carry the confidence of the very people it is meant to serve, it must be guided by the right person. The Government have appointed Baroness Amos to lead the review. She commands great respect, and I have no question about her personal abilities or integrity. However, as I have said, the key issue here is trust, and in that respect she is not the right choice for Sussex. I ask the Secretary of State for Health to listen to what the families are saying in Sussex, which is that Donna Ockenden be appointed to oversee the review at University Hospitals Sussex.

[Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)]

I thank my hon. Friend for highlighting the trust that Donna Ockenden has built through the work she has done, with those Sussex families, and indeed families in Nottingham, Shrewsbury and Telford. Her report in 2022 laid out immediate and essential actions. She deliberately did not call them recommendations; they were actions that needed to be taken. They must be delivered in full, so does my hon. Friend agree with me that we cannot lose any more time and that those actions need to happen alongside the inquiry that is now taking place? We cannot afford to delay, and these families deserve to see those actions implemented now.

[John Milne]

I thank my hon. Friend and fellow Sussex MP for her intervention, and I very much agree with her. Donna is a midwife herself, and she has been personally involved with the families in Sussex.