Midwives covered up mistakes after death of two newborn babies

Hazel Williams and Lisa Land struck off the register for ‘dishonest’ and ‘misleading’ behaviour

Jasper White was born on June 25 2019 and died the next morning

13 November 2024 4:54pm GMT

Two midwives have been struck off after they delayed calling ambulances for two newborns, who later died in hospital, and then tried to cover up their mistakes.

Hazel Williams and Lisa Land have been thrown out of the profession following the deaths of Jasper White and Margot Bowtell.

Both babies were seriously unwell when they were born at the Aveta Birth Centre in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, a disciplinary hearing was told.

But Ms Williams, who led the unit, and Mrs Land failed to respond quickly enough and call an ambulance for them to be taken to the nearest hospital. In Jasper’s case, the pair then altered medical records to make it appear as if he was in better condition than he was.

The tribunal heard that the two women worked at the midwife-led unit for low-risk pregnancies and that the nearest hospital was the Gloucestershire Royal Hospital half an hour away.

Jasper was born at the clinic on June 25 2019, but within minutes was struggling to breathe and had a “pale colour”.

However, an ambulance was not called until 50 minutes after his birth, including a 20-minute delay between Mrs Land deciding that he needed to be transferred and the emergency call being made.

An expert witness told the panel that the delay “significantly shortened” his chances of survival.

The hearing was told that after Jasper’s death, Ms Williams told Mrs Land to change the “details of birth” form recording Jasper’s condition from “poor” to “good”.

Ms Williams also made changes to other statistics on the record to make it seem like Jasper was in better health than he was.

The panel concluded it was “dishonest” for the two women to make these changes and that they intended to “mislead” anyone who checked the records.

Craig and Laura Bowtell with their daughter Margot, who died three days after delivery

On May 14 2020, almost a year after Jasper’s death, Laura Bowtell gave birth to her daughter, Margot, at the same centre.

Mrs Bowtell requested an ambulance three times in the hours leading up to Margot’s birth and it was not until the final time she asked that Ms Williams got a colleague to make the call.

Margot required immediate resuscitation and once at hospital was taken to the neonatal intensive care unit. She died three days later owing to complications from oxygen deprivation.

During the birth, her foetal heartbeat dropped below 60bpm which should have prompted an emergency response from the whole unit, led by Ms Williams as the lead midwife, the tribunal heard.

This did not happen and the panel heard that Ms Williams used the regular call bell to ask for help and not the emergency bell because it was regularly switched off as she wanted the centre to be a “home from home” without alarms going off.