If you were listening to the BBC Radio 4 TODAY programme this morning, then you would have heard Baroness Amos speaking with Emily Barley, co-founder of the Maternity Safety Alliance, regarding the loss of her daughter, Beatrice in 2022 as a result of basic failings in her maternity care.
Baroness Amos has been appointed by Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, to chair the National Maternity and Neonatal Investigation. Emily does not believe that this goes far enough and the Maternity Safety Alliance are calling for a statutory public inquiry into maternity services. The discussion came in light of Baroness Amos’ first reflections on the state of maternity care in England.
Baroness Amos advised that what she had seen during the first 3 months of her investigation had been “much worse” than she’d anticipated. She advised that she had spoken with women who had been put in rooms and left, had bled out in bathrooms and had received poor basic care. She also advised that nearly every individual she had spoken to stated that they had not been listened to.
So is Baroness Amos really listening? Emily’s opinion was that families are still not being listened to and that babies will continue to die. She felt that Baroness Amos was describing rather superficial, poor experiences in maternity care and that her inial comments “majored on staff experience” rather than the experience of families who had lost babies or whose babies had suffered life-changing injury.
For my part, I fail to see how any of the initial findings can come as a surprise to Baroness Amos as even a cursory glance at the pervious investigations into maternity services (Morecombe Bay, Shrewsbury and Telford, Cwm Taf or East Kent) show that poor standards of maternity care and women and families being ignored and not listened to are themes which bleed through every investigation. And, in fact, these are just the tip of the iceberg. As Emily said during the interview, the issues identified by Baroness Amos to date are far from the worst issues being seen in maternity care and which I deal with on a daily basis.
Baroness Amos advised that this was just her initial update and that her investigation sought to make urgent, systemic change to maternity services. She advised that she fully anticipated that the Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, would implement her recommendations.
The full report is due to be published in 2026.
Baroness Amos, who is chairing a review into maternity care, said that what she has seen so far “has been much worse” than she’d anticipated.