An under-fire hospital trust has had to pay back £2.36m to a regulator after falsely claiming it had met all safety standards in its maternity services.

East Kent Hospitals Trust, which is at the centre of a baby death scandal, was awarded millions of pounds following the self-assessments in which bosses claimed to have achieved all safety actions at the maternity units at Margate's QEQM and the William Harvey Hospital in Ashford.

The incentive scheme by NHS Resolution sees trusts contribute funds and if they can then demonstrate they have achieved the 10 outlined actions they can recover their money as well as a share of any unallocated funds.

In year one of the scheme, which launched in 2018, EKH (East Kent Hospitals) claimed to have met all 10, which was repeated in year two.

Based on these self-assessments, the trust was then awarded £1.5m and £866,000 respectively over those two years.

But it has now emerged, the trust in fact achieved just six out of the 10 in year one, and eight in year two.

All funds have now been paid back, although EKH has been given £270,000 towards its action plan for improvement, which is allowed under the incentive scheme.

An EKH spokesman confirmed money awarded through the maternity incentive scheme, which included its own contributed funds, has been returned.

She added: "We are committed to providing excellent care for every family who uses our maternity service.

"We have made significant improvements in maternity care and continue to do so.

"These include increased staffing, including a 24-hour consultant presence at the acute maternity unit at William Harvey Hospital, launching continuity of carer teams to improve outcomes and safety, and building a new, dedicated maternity triage unit at William Harvey, due to open in March.

"The new triage unit was included in our action plan of improvement that was submitted to NHS Resolution, and we were granted part of our contribution back to fund it."

'This is the culture that must be changed...'

The trust is currently the focus of an independent inquiry by Dr Bill Kirkup, who led the probe into the Morecambe Bay baby death scandal and also worked on the investigation into the Hillsborough football disaster.

Last year, the hospital trust's board admitted the number of cases of potentially avoidable baby deaths could be as many as 15 in seven years.

The Healthcare Safety Investigations Branch (HSIB) is currently examining three individual maternity cases.

The independent Kirkup Review, which is a separate investigation, is also looking into the standard of care provided by the maternity and neonatal service at EKH since 2009, the year it became a foundation trust.

Derek Richford, whose grandson Harry died after being born at the QEQM in Margate in 2017 in what a coroner said described a "wholly avoidable" death, says the false safety claims are astonishing.

"The key to me is that during this period the trust had severe issues with maternity, demonstrated with Harry and the other cases," he said.

"The trust reported 10/10 for maternity safety and when asked to re-check confirmed 10/10 when only 6/10 was true.

"This is the culture that must be changed."

The 10 include staffing levels, the reporting of incidents and making sure systems are in place to review deaths.

Once trusts submit their assessments, which are signed off by the boards, they then go through an external verification process.

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