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In April 2021, Poppy Russell passed away just 12 hours after her birth at the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford. During pregnancy, her mother Katie communicated to midwives that she suffered from tokophobia, a fear of natural childbirth, and requested a caesarean section. Despite this, she was repeatedly told that she could not simply ask for a planned caesarean. When labour began, Katie was induced, but she described experiencing extended periods without appropriate care.
Once admitted to the labour suite, Katie recounted that fetal monitoring was inadequate and key signs of distress in Poppy were missed. Ultimately, Poppy was delivered via emergency caesarean section, but by that time she had sustained a hypoxic brain injury and she died later that day. An inquest later revealed that if Poppy had been born just an hour earlier, she would likely have survived.
Following the tragedy, the Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust (SaTH), which operated the hospital, placed blame on Katie, falsely claiming she had refused fetal monitoring—a conclusion rejected by the inquest. Neil Russell, Katie’s husband, expressed deep frustration, saying the trust’s actions not only constituted neglect but were accompanied by attempts to cover up failures. “Losing your daughter is one thing, but then to find that there was a cavalcade of lies was almost as bad,” he said. After the inquest in 2023, the trust acknowledged shortcomings in care and issued an apology, pledging to improve its maternity services.
In March 2024, Katie and Neil met with representatives from the trust to discuss the circumstances surrounding Poppy’s death. From these conversations, they felt compelled to create a legacy in their daughter’s memory. Neil explained, “The first conversations about Poppy’s Promise were about being human. It spun from our treatment, and not being treated like human beings.” Poppy’s Promise centers on four essential care values: compassion, acknowledgement, respect, and empowerment—emphasizing the importance of seeing the person behind the diagnosis and recognising their feelings.
Katie recalls one midwife’s kindness during the difficult time, who offered empathy and comfort with words and tears. “She came in and said, ‘how are you doing? I just want to hug you.’ She sat with me and she cried with me and she said, ‘this should never have happened,’ and that will always stay with me because it’s exactly what I needed at that point.” At the time of Poppy’s death, SaTH was already under scrutiny in a large maternity inquiry which found that 201 babies and nine mothers might have survived if care had been improved. The trust is now integrating Poppy’s Promise into training for all 8,000 staff members and has embedded compassion-related questions into its recruitment process.
Tasha Simmons, a midwifery ward manager at the trust, highlights the significance of the training, stating, “The most important part of the training is to remind me that we are here on a woman’s journey, they are not on our journey. They don’t need to know that I’ve answered three emergency bells this morning, that’s not important to them. What’s important is I’m fully present with them to support them in their experience, with kindness and compassion.” Staff acknowledge they face intense pressures, from busy Accident and Emergency departments to complex patient cases, making kindness challenging but crucial. Emergency medicine consultant Dr Adrian Marsh observes the risk of compassion fatigue but underlines research showing that empathy leads to better patient outcomes and fewer complications.
Katie and Neil report that multiple NHS organisations and universities have contacted them interested in adopting Poppy’s Promise within their own training frameworks. Their aspiration is to weave compassionate care deeply into the fabric of healthcare services throughout the system
Read the full article from The BBC here: Read More
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