National investigation into maternity services announced

Health Secretary Wes Streeting has commissioned a rapid maternity review, which will report by December, into NHS provision nationally.

He also unveiled a new taskforce to investigate maternity safety, which will be led by him, and instigate much-needed change into NHS maternity care.

The Health Secretary also addressed calls for local inquiries into maternity care, and has granted an inquiry into University Hospitals Sussex. The inquiry has been called for by a group of nine families who have lost babies at the Trust, and Mr Streeting has met with some of them as he put together his landmark announcement.

He pledged maternity reforms would be done in conjunction with maternity professionals and bereaved families, as he and the Government seek to make seismic change into the crisis-hit system.

Mr Streeting pledged that his reforms would focus on delivering accountability and justice to families and would drive improvement.

He said he wants to ensure that “no parent or baby is ever let down again”.

The inquiry into University Hospitals Sussex has been welcomed by the group of nine families whose babies died at hospitals within the Trust, and who have campaigned for the past year for an inquiry.

The group includes Katie Fowler and Robert Miller, whose daughter Abigail’s death in January 2022 was found to be preventable at her inquest.

"We are grateful to Wes Streeting for listening to us and instructing an independent review of our nine babies’ deaths at UHS between 2021-2023. Having exhausted all other avenues for truth and learning, we believe this is the only way to understand what happened to cause our babies to die and the only way to uncover the extent of gaslighting that happens in the aftermath of a baby’s death,” they said.

"We look forward to working with Mr Streeting on the Terms of Reference of this review to ensure that it highlights systemic failings, produces actionable recommendations, and that other families harmed at UHS have a route to accountability too. We also reiterate our request for Donna Ockenden to lead the review.

“We hope this will help UHS to recognise and publicly take responsibility for the consequences of providing dangerously unsafe maternity care.”

Law firm Slater and Gordon acts for families impacted by maternity failings nationally and has consistently called for urgent action to tackle the crisis in NHS maternity services. 

Nisha Sharma, principal lawyer at Slater and Gordon, says: "Urgent and decisive action into maternity services is long overdue, but we welcome Wes Streeting's steps to tackle this. He is right to be so critical of the current state of NHS maternity provision and the clear plan he has unveiled today, at both a national level and in local NHS Trusts which have seen particular failings, can only be seen as a positive step. 

"We must now see work get underway on his review and taskforce as a matter of priority and without further delay. Every day, mothers and babies are suffering trauma, harm and devastation in maternity units across the country, and change is absolutely essential. We fully support Mr Streeting's commitment to improvement and reform and urge him and his team to work tirelessly to effect this, and protect the mothers and babies who trust the NHS with their wellbeing."