A south London mum has said she feels "completely let down" by hospital staff after an NHS Trust admitted causing the "devastating" stillbirth of her baby boy.

Charlotte Warner, from Streatham, was 23 when she lost her son, CJ, after midwives at St George’s Hospital failed to monitor his heart rate regularly or notice danger signs during her labour.

An investigation into the incident, which happened in May 2018, found hospital guidelines had not been followed.

Ms Warner had been induced and was experiencing complications and painful contractions, therefore heart rate checks should have been frequent.

In a legal case led by Hudgell Solicitors, St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust admitted that if CJ’s heart rate had been monitored accurately, his condition would have been identified sooner, potentially saving his life.

Ms Warner, now 29, said: "The pain of losing a baby like we did never goes away.

"When he was stillborn, we were left feeling completely let down by the staff, and that was before we knew that it had been their mistakes which cost him his life."

The investigation has taken place during a period of increased scrutiny for UK maternity units.

READ MORE: Pregnant women in ICU face 12-times higher rate of stillbirth

A recent All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) inquiry into birth found that good care for pregnant women was "the exception rather than the rule", with hundreds of women reporting feeling "neglected, ignored or belittled" when at their most vulnerable.

The inquiry received more than 1,300 submissions from families, including Ms Warner's.

The APPG has subsequently called for a new Maternity Commissioner to report directly to the Prime Minister and for the creation of a National Maternity Improvement Strategy.

Theresa Greenwood, a registered midwife and clinical support executive at Hudgell Solicitors, said: "It has become an everyday occurrence that maternity units up and down the country are operating with less staff than they should have.

"In discussion with colleagues this can often be one third of their workforce missing.

"It has been identified by numerous inquiries over at least the last ten years that low staffing levels are key to improving maternity services.

"The new Government should make mandatory the APPG’s recommendations across all NHS trusts."

She highlighted staffing issues as a key factor in the number of childbirth negligence cases which cost the NHS in England nearly £1bn a year.

READ MORE: Sidcup parents fundraise for St George's Hospital who saved baby

Ms Warner said that in her case she was also unaware of how badly her labour was progressing due to miscommunication.

The 29-year-old said: "I wasn’t aware of how things were going wrong, but of course nor were they until it was too late.

"I’d expressed how much pain I was in several times, but I’d been reassured on a number of occasions that all was as it should be and, as it was my first baby, I just accepted what I was being told.

"Then, all of a sudden, a midwife said that she couldn’t find a heartbeat, and I knew instantly that it was bad because there had never been an issue hearing CJ’s heart all the way through my pregnancy."

Ms Warner, who is now the mum of three young children, said she suffered from depression after losing CJ, and was suicidal at times.

St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust offered a full apology to Charlotte Warner, and agreed an out of court damages settlement.

A spokesperson for St George’s Hospital said: "We are sorry the care Ms Warner received fell short of the high standards we expect, and we would like to apologise sincerely and unreservedly to Ms Warner and her family.

"We offer our deepest sympathies to them all.

"We continually strive to improve the quality of the services we provide, and a comprehensive internal investigation identified areas of improvement within our midwifery services.

"We have now implemented these improvements including linking heart readings to a central monitoring system and carrying out individualised assessments."

Ms Warner said: "I think there’s a lack of compassion, and that is something which is really needed when you go through something like I did."