‘I was neglected for hours while in labour and lost my baby - the hospital admits my child could have been saved’

Parents-to-be, Amy and Jamie, could not wait to welcome their new baby to the world after an uneventful pregnancy. But they never got the chance to bring their healthy little girl, Harper, home after she was stillborn.

Shocking failings by The Royal Oldham Hospital staff to take care of Amy and her baby have been admitted by the hospital trust, which concluded that had ‘appropriate monitoring been carried out’ the findings would have led to earlier delivery, ‘with Harper being born alive’.

Amy Harrison was days overdue and left alone in a hospital side room ‘all night’ without being checked by a doctor or midwife after being induced, she told the Manchester Evening News . Amy’s baby’s lack of movements went unnoticed and she died - but could have been saved.

READ MORE:'Screams' heard as 'lovely' woman, 63, mauled to death by dogs in home

Amy got through the majority of her pregnancy just fine. The expectation was that she would give birth normally with her husband Jamie by her side.

But as the Covid-19 pandemic took hold of the country, circumstances radically changed. By May 2020, when Amy was due to welcome her baby, she could no longer be accompanied while giving birth as she’d hoped because of NHS hospital social distancing rules.

“I’d got to almost 42 weeks - 41 weeks and five days and I’d had no signs at all. I was told to ring the hospital and book an induction.

“I was getting a bit worried that I was way too far overdue.”

The couple lived in Bury at the time but as Amy had been born at The Royal Oldham Hospital - along with her sibling and the children of her friends - they decided to choose the facility for their own baby, believing it was safe.

But ‘from the moment’ Amy called to book in for her induction,