Conservative government was 'asleep at the wheel' in relation to maternity safety, senior midwife says
Donna Ockenden, who led a landmark inquiry into maternity failings at the Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust, has said there needs to be "accelerated progress" in relation to the care of new mothers and their babies.
Wednesday 18 September 2024 20:04, UK
The previous government was "asleep at the wheel" in relation to maternity safety and oversaw a "number of lost opportunities" to improve care in the sector, a senior midwife has said.
Donna Ockenden listed 15 areas for "immediate and essential action" when she published a report into the maternity failings at Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust in March 2022.
She also backed the UK's first ever parliamentary inquiry into birth trauma which found this year that good care for pregnant women "is the exception rather than the rule".
The senior midwife previously said families have been "let down" by failure to improve services.
Ms Ockenden, now the chair of an independent review into maternity services at the Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, is calling for a meeting with Health Secretary Wes Streeting as she warns failings in care are putting mothers and babies at risk.
Speaking to Sky News after the hospital's annual general meeting today, Ms Ockenden said: "There have been a number of lost opportunities to improve maternity care... [former Conservative health secretaries] Sajid Javid and Jeremy Hunt gave very generously of their time to me as the chair of that review.
"The government fully endorsed all those findings.
"Sajid Javid said that everything that we'd written in that report would be introduced swiftly.
"We then had multiple changes of secretary of state. The government were quite frankly asleep at the wheel as regards to maternity services, and we're still in a position where we need accelerated progress on those immediate and essential actions."
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Mr Streeting, who became health secretary after Labour won the general election this year, has confirmed he would be happy to meet Ms Ockenden to discuss maternity care.
He told Sky News earlier: "When it comes to the crisis in all maternity services across the country, it is one of the biggest issues that keeps me awake at night worrying about the quality of care being delivered today and the risk of disaster greeting women in labour tomorrow.
Rare criticism reflects deep frustration at lack of maternity reform
It is extremely rare for the chair of any official investigation to directly criticise a government for being "asleep at the wheel" and failing to act to protect expectant mothers and their newborn babies.
It shows how deeply frustrated Donna Ockenden is with the pace of change within NHS maternity services.
The experienced former midwife has led reviews into maternity failings across the country and her recommendations were given to successive health secretaries including Jeremy Hunt and Sajid Javid.
Both, she says, promised to act swiftly.
But the money and resources have failed to materialise. It means mothers and babies are still at risk.
Ockenden is 12 months away from delivering her report into the failings at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust.
It is the biggest maternity investigation so far. She has already made contact with nearly 3,000 families and 800 staff.
And while she will aim to provide justice and answers for these families, she wants to make sure women are protected from possible harm now.
She calls the former government's inaction "lost opportunities".
Ockenden has asked for an urgent meeting with Wes Streeting to make sure there are no more.
"I think that what we've seen in the case of specific trusts are problems and risk factors that exist, right across maternity services across the country.
"And we're keen to make sure that when it comes to the work that Donna Ockenden has already done, we make sure that those lessons are applied not just in the case of those specific trusts, but actually right across the country.
"And we're determined to get this right."
A spokesman for the Conservatives declined to comment, as did Jeremy Hunt, who was Tory health secretary from 2012 to 2018. Sajid Javid, who was health secretary from 2021 to 2022, has been approached for comment.