The Kirkup Report- Reading the signals. Maternity and Neonatal services in East Kent- the report of the independent investigation

The death of a baby is a devastating loss for any family. As one bereaved mother put it, “When your baby dies, it’s like someone has shut the curtains on life, and everything moves from colour to darkness.” How much more difficult must it be if the death need not have happened? If similar deaths had occurred previously but had been ignored? If the circumstances of your baby’s death were not examined openly and honestly, leaving the inevitability of future recurrence hanging in the air?
The Panel investigating East Kent maternity services heard the harrowing accounts of far too many families to whom all of this had happened, and more. If it was hard for us to listen to, we could not imagine how much harder it was for those families to relive, although the effects on those who were giving us their accounts were often all too clear. The primary reason for this Report is to set out the truth of what happened, for their sake, and so that maternity services in East Kent can begin to meet the standards expected nationally, for the sake of those to come.