Some figures for context, because if the figures the Independent have suggested are right, its utterly appalling. How on earth did 130 incidents over 4 years go on for so long? Thats over 30 a year at the same trust.
The figures for Telford which are public suggest 51 babies brain were damaged due to oxygen deprivation between 1979 and 2017 are now being investigated. And in 2017 it was reported in The Telegraph that there had been 232 claims against the NHS in 2016-2017 for brain damage in maternity. The previous year it had been 188 cases.
The New Scientist reported the following in 2017 (the same year Harry died):
www.newscientist.com/article/2138065-babies-are-dying-during-childbirth-in-the-uk-due-to-poor-care/
Three-quarters of the babies who die or are brain damaged during childbirth in the UK might have been saved by better medical care, an inquiry has concluded.
And
Called Each Baby Counts, the report is a result of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists investigating 1136 cases of babies born in the UK in 2015 who either suffered brain damage during birth, or died during delivery or in the next week.
There was also this comment:
Maureen Treadwell from the Birth Trauma Association charity says the report looked at the right cases, but should have tried to identify which hospitals have higher rates of poor care.
The 'Each Baby Counts' report looks like it was the one in the report in the OP.
So we have all these targets for maternity, but it doesn't seem like the number of incidents where babies were deprieved of oxygen and it later emerged they were brain damaged are being monitored routinely.
Its now 2020 and its only now that the extent of the problem at East Kent seems to be coming out. There was an awareness of it as it was put in special measures but even then if the Independant's reporting is even half accurate you have to ask very serious questions. It suggests a complete systematic failure at not just an institutional level but at a national level to pick up on what was going on.
This is despite the fact that injuries caused by brain damage at birth make up a huge amount of NHS claims.
The latest Annual Report & Accounts by NHS Resolution, published this month, shows that maternity claims are still costing 48% of the total value of claims across all NHS disciplines, despite only making up 10% of the total number of claims. This percentage is a 2% drop from last year’s record high of 50%; however, it still remains the largest contributor by far of the total £4,513.2 million. The second highest contributor after maternity being 17%, which belongs to aggregated specialities labelled as “other”.
Most of the cost of maternity claims come from cerebral palsy/brain damage claims. The number of maternity cerebral palsy/brain damage claims has gone down by almost 10% from the previous year, dropping by 20 claims to 211; however, this was after a big increase of 42 claims (over 20%) in 2016/17 from 2015/16. The mean average number of claims from the year 2004/2005 to 2017/18 has been almost 219, and so it’s encouraging to see that the last financial year has been below the average.
To put it another way, NHS 'Health Tourism' which is apparently being cracked down on, costs us £1.8billion per year.
Yet there seems to be little to no effort to tackle the enourmous cost of maternity negligence by dealing with the issues that lead to incidents and there isn't a huge political drive to even acknowledge the problem properly.
Why?
There are saving to be made here, but more importantly, it would mean the lives of many were not destroyed in the process. Win Win.
UPDATE on the case in the OP
The final ruling in Harry's case looks to have just come out:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-51228194
The judge has ruled he died because of 'neglect'.
Coroner Christopher Sutton-Mattocks was told Harry was born not crying, pale, and with no movement in an operating room "full of panicking people".
Giving a narrative conclusion, he found Harry's death was "contributed to by neglect".
and
Mr Sutton-Mattocks criticised the hospital trust for initially saying Harry's death was "expected", which meant the coroner was not informed of Harry's death.
It was only because of the persistence of the family that an inquest was ordered, the coroner said.
and
Explaining his conclusion, Mr Sutton-Mattocks said he considered the divergences of unlawful killing or neglect.
"I do not conclude the failures were so large and so atrocious as to fall within the definition of unlawful killing."
I find the whole thing an utter scandal, that no one cares about because of an 'oh women and babies die and get injured at birth and thats just normal' attitude. There's no easy target to blame here. Just people in positions of power making budgetary decisions...