Stafford midwives face end of career over blunders before newborn's death

Midwife Carol Marston silenced an alarm 16 times during a night shift at Stafford Hospital as baby Rupert Sanders' pulse rate slowed dramatically.

Marston and colleague Anne Mather failed to properly monitor his heart in the last 16 minutes before birth and delayed pressing the emergency alarm, the Nursing and Midwifery Council heard.

Eleven hours after Rupert's mother Lauren went to the hospital in labour he was born with the umbilical cord around his neck at 1.06am on Christmas Eve 2014. He died three days later of multiple organ failure.

Rupert's parents Lauren and Robert wept following the announcement from NMC panel chair Joy Julien yesterday.

Addressing Marston, and referring to Rupert as Baby A, Ms Julien said: "The panel determined that your actions fell substantially short of the standards expected of a registered midwife and that this was serious enough to amount to misconduct.

"Ensuring that you documented your actions and most importantly, in classifying the CTG (cardiotocograph machine) correctly or, at a minimum, escalating to the Registrar were crucial in the circumstances and in failing to do so, had a catastrophic impact on Baby A's chances of survival, Service User A, and her family.

"Baby A sadly passed away and your actions directly contributed to his death and/or caused him to lose a significant chance of survival."

Giving evidence Marston said she did not see there was 'anything of concern' in the hours before the birth and failed to notice the CTG was 'pathological'.

But she admitted her clinical assessment of CTG was 'likely to have been a contributing factor to death and to be a factor which caused significant chance of survival'.

Marston, who had care of the mother and baby for the last six hours of labour, admits not administering ranitidine, medication which decreases stomach acid production, and failing to escalate the results of a fetal heartbeat scan (CTG) or recognising them as 'pathological'.

Mather admitted to misclassifying the CTG and not escalating the situation. She denied but was found to have failed to report loss of fetal contact on the CTG, or irregular contractions.

Mather, who was not present and unrepresented, was cleared of a charge alleging she 'contributed towards the death of patient A and/or caused patient A to lose a significant chance of survival'.

The panel found both Marston and Mather's fitness was currently impaired by reason of misconduct.

The hearing continues.