James Harrison represents CQC

James Harrison represented the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in an inquest touching upon the death of Ida Lock, who was born at Royal Lancaster Infirmary on 9 November 2019 and died on 16 November 2019 after suffering a hypoxic brain injury. After 20 days of evidence, Senior Coroner Dr James Adeley reached the conclusion of ‘neglect’ and found that baby Ida died as a result of a combination of clinical failings by employees of University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay Trust.

James represented the CQC who became an interested person in 2024 after a complaint by a whistleblower was received by the Senior Coroner several hours before the inquest was due to be heard in February 2024 raising concerns about the quality of regulation by the CQC. Partly informed by the complaint and by the evidence heard during the Thirlwall Inquiry, the CQC was required to undertake a significant disclosure exercise dealing with regulation of the Trust in the years following the Kirkup Report that was published in 2015, which had identified a systemic “sequence of failures of care and unnecessary deaths” within the maternity care at the Trust.

The Senior Coroner has made a ‘Prevention of Future Deaths Report’ to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to address issues of concern about the way in which maternity care is provided, the way that incidents are investigated and reported by the Trust, and how external bodies such as the Maternity & Newborn Safety Investigations operate.

For news articles: BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg1w82l1jko

Independent: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/ryan-lock-family-healthcare-safety-investigation-branch-bill-kirkup-midwives-b2719414.html