UK probes maternity services after scandals of over 15 years

UK Health Secretary Wes Streeting on Monday announced a “rapid national investigation” into English maternity services after a string of scandals over 15 years.

Streeting said he ordered the probe after hearing many “deeply painful stories of trauma, loss and a lack of basic compassion–– caused by failures in NHS (National Health Service) maternity care that should never have happened”.

A series of reports into state-funded maternity units in recent years has laid bare failings in the care of women and babies.

A damning 2022 report into one found failures at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust in central England had contributed to the deaths of 201 babies and nine mothers over a 20-year period.

Streeting said it was clear from his meetings with bereaved families and others who had suffered avoidable harm that “something is going wrong” with England’s maternity and neonatal services.

“That’s why I’ve ordered a rapid national investigation to make sure these families get the truth and the accountability they deserve, and ensure no parent or baby is ever let down again,” he said.

The investigation will be broken into two parts, a health ministry statement said.

The first will “urgently investigate up to 10 of the most concerning” maternity and neonatal units.

The second will be a nation-wide look at services “bringing together lessons from past inquiries to create one clear, national set of actions to improve care across every NHS maternity service”.

Baby loss charity Sands welcomed the investigation calling it “much needed and long overdue”.

– ‘Line in the sand’ –

Jim Mackey, chief executive at NHS England, said the investigation would mark “a line in the sand for maternity care — setting out one set of clear actions for NHS leaders to ensure high quality care for all”.

The last Conservative government’s health secretary, Sajid Javid, apologised in parliament after the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital probe was published in March 2022.

Report author Donna Ockenden listed repeated failings from 2000 to 2019 that resulted in babies being stillborn, dying shortly after birth or being left severely brain-damaged.

Seven months later another report published more damning findings on services run by hospitals in east Kent in southeast England.

Some 45 babies who died at two hospitals there might have survived if their care had been up to standard, the report by Bill Kirkup found.

Kirkup, who seven years previously had published similar findings after probing baby deaths at another group of hospitals — Morecambe Bay NHS Trust — in northwestern England, said that once again, lessons had not been learned.

“On at least eight separate occasions over a 10-year period, the trust board (at East Kent) was presented with what should have been inescapable signals that there were serious problems.

“They could have put it right… but they didn’t. In every single case they found a way to deny that there were problems,” he said, adding: “This cannot go on.”

Ockenden is currently carrying out a review of maternity services at hospitals in Nottingham in central England after serious concerns about standards.

– ‘Critical condition’ –

A study published in January 2024 found the number of women in Britain dying during pregnancy or soon afterwards has reached its highest level in almost two decades.

The findings from MBRRACE-UK, which monitors maternal deaths, stillbirths and infant deaths, and their causes, found that the maternal death rate for the period 2020-2022, was 11.54 per 100,000.

This is up from 8.79 per 100,000 in 2017-2019 and the highest since 2003-2005.

The NHS was a major issue at last year’s general election.

In September an independent report described it as being in a “critical condition” following years of underfunding and ineffective reorganisation.

Others, however, argue that many of its problems are driven by poor practice and inefficiency, not lack of funding.