Maternity care not fit for purpose, says report

A powerful maternity commissioner will be appointed to push through a transformation of childbirth care in England after a review concluded that the system was not fit for purpose.

- Denis Campbell, Tobi Thomas

Ministers have bowed to growing pressure by agreeing to recruit the UK’s first commissioner for maternity and neonatal care. Whoever takes on the role will pursue hospitals over persistent failures in care, ensure wide-ranging improvements are made urgently and try to restore the faith of families in a maternity system in England that has been rocked by a series of scandals.

James Murray, the health secretary, announced the move in response to Baroness Amos’s government-commissioned inquiry of maternity care concluding that it is a system characterised by poor care and a failure to listen to women and plagued by racism and discrimination.

‘‘The maternity and neonatal system in England is no longer fit to consistently deliver high-quality, compassionate care to every woman and family and requires urgent reform to put safety at its centre, embed a focus on listening to women and ensure anti-racist practice at every level,’’ she found.

Amos’s report is the second in less than a week to advise ministers to instigate an overhaul to reduce the risk of mothers and babies suffering damage or dying because of errors and receiving inadequate care from the NHS.

Donna Ockenden, the author of last week’s inquiry into the Nottingham maternity scandal, is widely expected to become the new commissioner.

The appointee will also co-chair with the health secretary the government's national maternity and neonatal taskforce. It is drawing up an action plan to improve care, which is due in December.

"I still find it shocking that women and babies have been harmed or have died, sometimes as a result of failings in the maternity and neonatal care provided. We are a wealthy country. It should not happen," Amos said in the 181-page report of her nine monthlong investigation.