A hospital trust will be scrutinised by Kent County Council over a series of failings which led to a baby's death.

The local health authority is expected to investigate 26 maternity cases at East Kent NHS Trust, alongside the Department of Health and Social Care.

It comes after Harry Richford died just a week after his birth at Margate's QEQM Hospital in November 2017, which was ruled as "wholly avoidable" by a coroner five days ago - and at least seven preventable baby deaths are believed to have occurred at the same trust.

East Kent Hospitals Trust's senior executives have today been requested to attend a crunch scrutiny meeting with Kent county councillors at Maidstone County Hall in two months' time.

KCC's health overview and scrutiny committee chairman, Cllr Paul Bartlett (Con) told the Local Democracy Reporting service: "We are deeply sorry to all the parents involved and we want to ensure that the responsible trust are held accountable."

A Parliamentary report on the situation will be published in two weeks' time following an impromptu inspection from the Care Quality Commission (CQC), national health watchdog.

The results of the paper will likely be discussed at KCC's scheduled public meeting in March.

Following a council meeting at Maidstone County Hall earlier today, Cllr Bartlett added: "We need to keep abreast of what is going on in all of our local hospitals and it's to our great concern that this issue has arisen."

Canterbury's Labour MP Rosie Duffield called for a public inquiry into the maternity ward scandal, earlier today in the House of Commons.

During KCC's health and overview scrutiny committee, Cllr Nick Chard (Con) and Cllr Karen Constantine (Lab) clamoured for a thorough investigation into the Trust's failings.

Cllr Constantine described the emerging scandal as "very worrying" and said: "If the Parliamentary report does not bring comfort then I think we could be looking for the need to call a public inquiry.

"These are wholly preventable deaths we are talking about...it is for this committee to take very firm and swift action."

Cllr Chard, who stood as a contender to become KCC leader last year, also expressed his "concern".

"We are reviewing our service with some of England's leading maternity experts to make sure we are doing everything we can to make rapid improvements to maternity care in east Kent"

He said: "There are 26 cases being investigated and it's important for the rest of the population of Kent to know there is that degree of safety."

Top officials at East Kent NHS Trust will be required to attend a public meeting on March 5 to explain what has happened and inform the committee of actions taken to prevent this from happening again.

The trust also manages William Harvey in Ashford, Buckland Hospital in Dover, the Royal Victoria in Folkestone and the Kent and Canterbury.

East Kent Hospitals Trust has said they will update KCC on the work underway to improve maternity services for patients and families at their March meeting.

A spokesman for East Kent Hospitals added: "We recognise that we have not always provided the right standard of care for every woman and baby in our hospitals and we wholeheartedly apologise to families for whom we could have done things differently.

"We have made significant changes to our maternity service in recent years to improve the care of women and their families.

"We are reviewing our service with some of England’s leading maternity experts to make sure we are doing everything we can to make rapid improvements to maternity care in east Kent.

"We want to provide an excellent standard of care to every mother and child who uses our service, and we will not rest until we, the public and our regulators are confident that we are doing so."

Dover MP Natalie Elphicke this week called for "immediate action" to improve maternity services and for coroners to be given powers to investigate stillbirths during a speech in parliament.

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