The latest scandal exposes how the NHS fails women

The report is an indictment of the maternity care women often receive. When will it change, asks Rebecca Thomas

- Rebecca Thomas

The report of the Nottingham maternity inquiry, published yesterday, makes for harrowing reading.

The review includes 520 cases involving babies and mothers who died or suffered catastrophic harm as a result of care failings at maternity units under the Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH) NHS Trust.

Failings were “hauntingly consistent” for more than a decade, said Donna Ockenden, the senior midwife who led the inquiry, with “concerns suppressed, incidents downgraded, and the voices of women, particularly the most vulnerable, systematically dismissed”. Women and staff were bullied and gaslit, with some told they were imagining their pain.

The damning assessment continues throughout 400 pages of heartbreaking detail. But at the core of the report is the message that the NHS has once again failed to take proper care of women.

The Nottingham inquiry is the fifth major review of maternity failings in the UK since the 2015 report into Morecambe Bay Hospitals. Next week, another government-commissioned rapid national review of maternity services at 14 NHS trusts is due to be published, amid concerns about the overall treatment of women and babies in these settings.