The grandmother of a baby who died at just 10 weeks old has said she didn't make it to her hospital bedside in time to say goodbye.

Phoebe-Rose Douglas was reported to have gone into cardiac arrest at an address in Meaford Drive, Blurton, and was taken by paramedics to the Royal Stoke University Hospital where she died four days later after suffering severe brain damage due to a lack of oxygen.

A urine sample carried out on the day of her death – October 29, 2019 – showed a level of cocaine. Tests carried out on hair samples indicated she had been exposed to cocaine, heroin and cannabis.

Parents Rachel Bourne and John Douglas both admitted child cruelty at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court in 2024. Bourne was jailed for 31 months and Douglas sentenced to 10 months' custody, suspended for two years.

Phoebe-Rose had been born in Halifax in August 2019 and moved to Stoke-on-Trent with her mother the following month.

In a statement read out at the tot's inquest from Phoebe-Rose's grandmother, she said she had been on holiday in Australia at the time of her granddaughter's admission to hospital. She immediately made plans to return home.

She said: "When Phoebe-Rose passed away, my life and the life of my family changed forever. It will be forever my deepest regret we were not able to make it back in time to say goodbye and tell her I loved her.

"It has always been at the back of my mind if I had been home and not in Australia I may have been able to save her. It is something I will never know and it is something that will stay with me forever."

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Phoebe-Rose's parents were both drug users. A number of referrals had previously been made to social services before she was born, due to concerns raised about the family, including in July 2019 in relation to their housing conditions.

Robert Taylor, business manager for Stoke-on-Trent Safeguarding Partnership, told the inquest a "rapid review" was carried out following Phoebe-Rose's death.

He said: "Access to early help could have been improved. The mum moved between two local authority areas during that period – she said she had support from her family and her health visitor.

"One of the questions was did the health visitor show an adequate level of curiosity or take the mum's word she was coping. I don't know whether she was offered early help in Halifax. Early help was offered in Stoke but was closed with an opportunity of an early action plan. The mum was engaging with services.

"The question is did we look deep enough into circumstances of how mum was living or did we take mum's word. With early help services there would have been help available for mum and baby and wider family. But it would have had to have been done by consent."

Since Phoebe-Rose's death, there was now a "much closer working relationship between adult services and children's services", the inquest was told.

Mr Taylor added: "We can't support the child without supporting the wider family, especially if the responsibility of looking after children remains with the family. There has been improvements in early help supporting families. A lot of investment has been put in place since 2021.

"Face-to-face engagement has increased with expectant parents, with targeted home visiting to families deemed to be high risk. Family hubs now operate across the city and there is a digital hub for people who can't get to a centre."

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Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Integrated Care Board carried out a wider thematic review after seven babies under the age of one died or suffered serious injury.

Stephanie Nightingale, designated nurse for safeguarding children, said: "Findings that required attention were primarily in relation to early help and lack of robust early help assessment. There was confusion over who was the lead practitioner who is responsible for completing assessments. And I think there was some element of resource and capacity issue related to that.

"There was a huge reliance on families attending clinics. What we were hearing was health visitors were not able to complete all these visits in the home."

Nationally there have now been "significant" reforms implemented across the safeguarding system, the inquest was told.

Ms Nightingale added: "The Families First programme is being implemented in relation to how practitioners respond to things like domestic abuse.

"The idea is we act earlier, we identify issues earlier which provides a more preventative approach which hopefully enables families to get the support they need to prevent these tragic things from happening."

The inquest continues.