Portland Hospital

English private maternity hospital

The Portland Hospital for Women and Children is a private maternity hospital on Great Portland Street, City of Westminster, London, England, owned by the Hospital Corporation of America.

The Portland was conceived by Barry Lewis, a paediatrician, who perceived a need for London to have a private hospital for women and children: it opened in 1983. It markets its services on an international basis and in 2015 about 25% of its earnings came from overseas patients. In 2015, the hospital secured planning approval for a new link bridge which would enable it to expand its specialist children's hospital within an adjacent building. It was described as a ‘5 star hotel for some very sick patients’ at an employment tribunal in 2022.

In February 1999, Laura Touche was admitted to deliver twins. On February 6, Touche reported severe headache pain after a caesarean section to Portland staff, but her rising blood pressure was not checked for two and a half hours. According to normal protocol in the NHS, hospital staff should have checked Touche's blood pressure every 20 minutes to safeguard against brain haemorrhage, but the Portland lacked any protocol for checking vital signs. Touche subsequently suffered a brain haemorrhage, fell into a coma, and sustained brain damage. She was transferred to the Middlesex hospital and then to the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery at Queen's Square, where she died on February 15. The hospital was investigated after Bartholomew was banned indefinitely from practising as a nurse or midwife after being found guilty of misconduct. Touche pointed to a lack of basic medical attention and record keeping, delays in administering drugs, and accused the hospital of a cover up. In 2002, Peter Touche revealed that in the wake of his wife's death, the hospital threatened him with legal action if the hospital's bill was not paid. The hospitals death rate from post partum haemorrhage was 20 times higher than the national average. In April 2012, Dr Kenneth MacLeod was cleared of failing his patient and serious professional misconduct, but was found guilty of other failings, mostly pertaining to record keeping.

On August 25, 2016, a seven year old boy died after his monitoring equipment was switched off by staff at the hospital. James Dwerryhouse suffered cardiac arrest and brain damage when the breathing equipment he needed to monitor sleep apnoea was switched off for nearly three hours. An investigation found further multiple failures including record keeping failures and the failure to document observations throughout the night. The baby boy, named Jake Junior, was the son of Hull City footballer Jake Livermore and his partner Danielle Del Guidice. An inquest concluded that Jake Junior's death was avoidable and could have been prevented if a caesarean section had been carried out earlier. The inquest heard that, despite signs of distress and an irregular heartbeat, staff at the Portland failed to carry out a blood test to determine if it was safe to continue delivery or if a caesarean section was appropriate. The couple's pleas for an emergency caesarean section were also ignored. On her child's death, Del Giudice said:<blockquote>Words cannot explain what we have been through in losing a perfectly healthy child because of mistakes made by medical staff during the birth. Knowing that people who I trusted to care for me and my baby and to ensure that we were safe throughout my labour, did not pick up the warning signs that Jake Junior was in distress is hard for me to accept. [ ] We have not even received any sort of apology from the consultant who is still practicing and it raises questions with us as to whether lessons are truly being learned. and Eugenie, and Prince Archie, as well as David and Victoria Beckham.