MEETINGS to discuss improvements to maternity services following a national scandal which led to the deaths of a woman and babies have been poorly attended by hospital staff, a team of external auditors has found.

Some employees were said to have attended no sessions at all on changes to the way care for pregnant women and babies is provided in the wake of the Morecambe Bay Investigation Report, published last year.

The controversial document, authored by government patient safety expert Dr Bill Kirkup, concluded 11 babies and one mother had died at Furness General Hospital as a direct result of failings in the maternity unit between 2004 and 2013.

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Dr Kirkup's recommendations for better care included reviewing the skills and competencies of certain groups of staff, creating a new, fit for purpose maternity unit and developing measures to promote effective multi-disciplinary team-working.

But an audit by Mersey Internal Audit Agency has found while most of the recommendations contained within the report have been met, meetings to work on the multi-disciplinary aspects of improving maternity care have not been effective.

A report on the matter to the hospital's board of directors, states: "Attendance records evidence cancelled sessions and poor attendance, with some staff having attended no sessions."

Now, bosses at the trust that runs FGH, in Dalton Lane, claim action is being taken to ensure all staff attend the meetings within the next three months so that the last three recommendations can be ticked off as complete.

Dr David Walker, medical director at the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust, said: "Of 116 identified actions within the plan, 113 have been met or are on track to be met.

"With the remaining three, changes are now being made to where attendance of meetings or the cancellation of meetings means they haven't had the impact they should have."

Jackie Daniel, UHMBT chief executive, added: "The publication of the Kirkup Report was a watershed moment, not just for the trust but for those families and communities that have been so tragically let down by past failures.

"It was important that we didn’t just treat the recommendations as a ‘check list’ of actions, because we owed it to everyone involved to demonstrate we would truly learn from it."