CUMBRIA'S former public health boss urged regional health leaders to declare a major NHS incident over the deaths of mothers and babies at a failing maternity unit while the tragedy was unfolding, new papers show.

Professor John Ashton, CBE, who held the position of county public health director between 2007 and 2013, said he was clear in his views that frequent fatalities within Furness General Hospital's maternity ward, in Barrow, should be investigated in 2011.

But he claims he was told the NHS could only handle one national scandal at a time - and it was already dealing with the multiple murders of patients by a nurse at Manchester's Stepping Hill Hospital.

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The information was released for the first time last week within transcripts of interviews given during the government's Morecambe Bay Investigation.

The year-long inquiry, led by Dr Bill Kirkup, found 16 babies and three mothers died as a result of substandard care, poor local management and cover ups at FGH, in Barrow, between 2004 and 2013.

During his 2014 interview, kept secret until now, Prof Ashton said: "We kept asking for it, and the thing I found most shocking was when Jane Cummings (former director of nursing at the North West Strategic Health Authority)... said 'we can't have more than one major incident going on at the same time, we can't cope with it because we're having to deal with this thing in Stepping Hill.'"

Prof Ashton also went on to allege that the trust in charge of FGH attempted to pressurise Cumbria's health bosses into closing down their probe into a cluster of five maternity deaths at the Dalton Lane site during 2008 - so the cases did not interfere with the organisation's quest to achieve coveted foundation trust status.

The deaths are thought to have included those of Dalton newborn Joshua Titcombe, Walney baby Alex Davey-Brady and Ulverston mum Nittaya Hendrickson and her son Chester.

Prof Ashton said the hospital later failed to co-operate with Cumbria Constabulary following the launch of a police investigation by refusing to hand over medical information relating to those who had died or been harmed at FGH.

Prof Ashton told Dr Kirkup's panel: "We were under pressure on two occasions... to close down incidents that were ongoing, to sign off as being completed; incidents to do with maternity and perinatal issues, and that was in June 2010 and again in June 2011.

"They wanted them closed down."

He added: "The key issue that cropped up was the hospital refusing to release records, and they really dragged their feet on releasing records."

The Morecambe Bay Investigation made 44 formal recommendations for improvements within both UHMBT and the wider NHS.

The trust met all recommendations to the deadlines set amid a raft of changes to its maternity services.

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