Leeds mum sent home pregnant after told baby had died takes fight to Health Secretary
Angela Welsh was among members of the Leeds Maternity Families Group who met Yvette Cooper
A grieving mum who says she was sent home still pregnant after being told her baby had died has taken her fight for answers to the Health Secretary.
Angela Welsh lost her son, Kion, on Valentine's Day in 2011. She says she was sent home from Leeds General Infirmary and told she would have to come back to give birth to him, then endured a 70-hour labour.
She was among members of the Leeds Maternity Families Group who met Health Secretary Yvette Cooper on Wednesday (October 7). Also at the meeting were Michelle Welsh MP, the government's national maternity adviser, and Donna Ockenden, who is chairing an independent review into maternity and neonatal care in Leeds. Angela is not related to Michelle Welsh.
For years, bereaved parents have raised concerns about the standard of care on maternity and neonatal wards run by Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Many believe the care they received caused or contributed to their babies' deaths, and say their concerns were dismissed and ignored.
In 2025, a CQC inspection said the trust needed to make immediate improvements. An independent review was announced that October. Families met former Health Secretary Wes Streeting several times to push for Donna Ockenden to lead it, and she was confirmed as chair in March.
A BBC investigation last year also found the deaths of at least 56 babies and two mothers at the trust over five years may have been preventable. In 2022, the trust had the highest neonatal mortality rate in the UK, at 4.46 per 1,000 live births.
Angela says Kion was two weeks overdue and she repeatedly told the hospital. Her previous sons had needed to be induced, and she says she kept asking staff to do the same, but they dismissed her concerns.
When Kion stopped moving, she went to the hospital and was told he had died. She says that despite asking for a caesarean section, she was sent home still pregnant. She later went through a 70-hour labour at the LGI.
She said: "They were filming One Born Every Minute at the time, they didn't film me.
"I had to give birth to my son, which was absolutely horrendous and then when he was born they said he had a knot in his cord, 'this must be why he died', which was a massive cover-up. When I was back six weeks later and they talked to me about why he died they said 'it wasn't to do with the knot in the cord, we don't know what it was'."
Angela spent years fighting to be heard. She tried to hire solicitors, went to the ombudsman and complained to the hospital, but says she got nowhere.
She said: "I was made to feel alone.
"I didn't know anybody else, and I fought for three years constantly, made myself sick. I had no counselling, I was begging for counselling, there was a bereavement midwife but apparently she lost my number, I went to the GP, I begged for antidepressants."
She says she eventually lost her business and became homeless. She now urges friends and family to avoid Leeds maternity wards. When she fell pregnant again, she chose Airedale Hospital instead.
After years of fighting alone, Angela found the Leeds Maternity Families Group and is continuing to demand answers. She wants to see real change, including better training for midwives. She also wants doctors to be clearer with patients about what they are writing in their notes.
She said: "The accountability, the culture, everything needs to be rewritten and changed. Mothers need to be listened to. Mums are treated like hypochondriacs."
'I felt entirely alone'
Jodie and Connor Pattison's son Theodore died in December 2025 while at the care of a different NHS Trust, although he had received some treatment in Leeds. They hope today's meeting finally means the families have been heard.
Jodie said: "Our son only died in December, and when I was trying to get answers, not only from Leeds but from another Trust, I felt entirely alone. You feel so alone to the point where you begin to question your own sanity."
Following the meeting, Jodie added: "It was incredibly important to be heard, and for your experience to matter, because so often in maternity care, women's experiences just don't matter. Whether it's at the time where they're asking for help and they're told 'No, you're fine, go away' in politer words, or if it's afterwards when they're saying 'I don't think my care was good enough, and someone needs to look at it' and again, you're not heard.
"Again, your voice is silenced. So to be in there with the Secretary of State, with Michelle Welsh, to be in there with Donna Ockenden, and to be heard and be believed was imporant beyond measure. I don't really have the words to explain how important that was."
Both Jodie and Connor hope a future investigation will also look at the situation at a national level, as they feel the problem is widespread across UK maternity wards. In particular, Jodie hopes senior leaders are held to account, and are made to answer for how this was allowed to happen for decades.
Connor explained: "That concept of there being a potential national issue here is becoming more apparent and more accepted.
"You look at all the inquiries into Nottingham, Leeds, other inquiries that are taking place, it's not a coincidence that there's a lot of common themes."
Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust has previously apologised, with chief medical officer Dr Magnus Harrison saying it had "not always delivered the highest quality of care to every family" and was "extremely sorry" to families who had lost babies.
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