Mother whose baby died after her concerns were dismissed by maternity unit is told she'll not receive any compensation

A mother has been told she will not receive any compensation after her baby died following poor care at a Kent maternity unit.

Tanya Linehan's son Ashton was stillborn at the William Harvey Hospital in Ashford, Kent in 2012.

An inquiry into failures at the East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust in 2022 concluded the care given to the family had 'failed to meet the standards required'.

After being invited by the hospital trust to discuss compensation earlier this year, they have now been told they will 'get nothing'.

Ms Linehan told BBC News the trust is 'in denial of the impact their negligence has had on me and my family'.

The Kirkup inquiry into the hospital trust's maternity care concluded 45 babies could have survived, and 12 who sustained brain damage could have had a different outcome.

The Linehan family has been working with the hospital trust to try and improve its maternity care since the publication of the report.

Tanya Linehan was overdue, at 41 weeks, in 2012 with baby Ashton. She had been feeling unwell and had concerns about how swollen she was.

She went to the William Harvey Hospital in Ashford, Kent but was told by midwives that it was 'fairly normal' at that stage.

Tanya said she went to the hospital 'a couple of times' but was 'always dismissed' and told she was 'overexcited and exaggerating things', she told ITV News .

Even after her GP wrote a letter saying she needed to be seen, she was turned away once again after a sweep. The same day when she returned home she felt no movement.

She returned to the hospital and was told the baby had no heartbeat.

Tanya's labour continued for 18 hours and she was told she needed to have an emergency delivery. Ashton was stillborn on November 5, 2012.

In May this year, senior staff at the trust invited Ms Linehan to speak to them about compensation.

The family and senior staff had multiple meetings over the following five months to discuss the details of the compensation package.

On Thursday, the meetings came to a conclusion when the trust's chief executive Tracey Fletcher told the family 'you will get nothing'.

The family was not given reasons for the decision.

Ms Linehan said: 'It felt like we were back with that same feeling that this trust doesn't care.

'For them to say five months down the line that they'd made the decision to not make any payments to me was really devastating.'

Her father, Phil Linehan, said the Kirkup report was a good report but 'he had no faith at all' in the hospital trust's ability to implement its findings.

A spokesperson for the hospital trust said: 'We are sincerely sorry for the loss of baby Ashton and the devastating and lasting impact on his family of the Trust's failure to provide the safe care the family should have received, and which was highlighted in the Reading the Signals report.

'We are committed to working with and listening to all families as we continue to improve maternity care.

'There is an established process for compensation within the NHS and after careful consideration the Trust has concluded that regrettably it is unable to make a payment outside of that process.'