Ministers have 'failed to fix racial disparities in maternal health'

Ministers have failed to tackle "appalling" and "glaring" racial disparities in maternal health despite repeated promises, MPs warn in a report published today and call for new targets to eliminate inequalities

- Andrew Gregory, Mabel Banfield-Nwachi

In a scathing report, the women and equalities committee said maternal death rates in deprived areas were on the rise, with women in the poorest areas about two and a half times more likely to die in childbirth than those in the richest.

Black women are still almost four times more likely to die from childbirth than white women, the committee warned, with too many experiencing treatment that "falls short of acceptable standards". The government and NHS leaders have also "underestimated the extent to which racism plays a role", it added.

Kemi Badenoch, the equalities minister, admitted yesterday that less than half the measures set out in the government's plan to tackle racial inequality and level up communities had been delivered.

In February last year the Guardian exposed how radical action was needed to tackle "overwhelming" minority ethnic health inequalities, after a leaked report concluded that "vast" and "widespread" inequity in all aspects of healthcare was harming the health of millions of patients.

Racism, racial discrimination, barriers to accessing healthcare and woeful collection of ethnicity data had "negatively impacted" the health of black, Asian and minority ethnic people for years, according to the review, commissioned by the NHS Race and Health Observatory. 

But more than a year on, MPs said there had been "much talk and little action".