Inside London's maternity crisis

Is it a 'postcode lottery' for mothers? A new study has found that the number of women who report positive labour and birth has fallen dramatically. Claire Cohen reports on the struggling wards

- Claire Cohen

WHEN Anna Young*, 38, was pregnant with her daughter, she did everything she could, to choose W a London hospital that would help her give birth safely. "Among my NCT group, there was a sense that it was a postcode lottery as to the standard of care you would get," she explains. "Women I know had a mixed bag of experiences at my local hospitals and it made me paranoid."

A new report suggests she had every right to be. The survey by NHS regulator the Care Quality Commission (CQC) found that the number of women nationwide who report a positive pregnancy, labour and birth experience has fallen dramatically.

The poll of 20,900 found that they had struggled during labour and birth, with only 63 per cent saying they had always been able to get a member of hospital staff's attention, down from 72 per cent in 2019.

After care was also a concern with 57 per cent of women saying they were always able to get help and 55 per cent feeling they couldn't always access advice on feeding after being sent home. Where women regularly saw the same midwife, the experiences reported tended to be more positive.

The report comes as concerns around maternity care increase. In October, another report by the CQC concluded that maternity services in England had declined to their lowest level and expressed "deep concerns" that the "quality of maternity care is not good enough" blaming leadership and culture. Major reviews into the Shrewsbury and Telford and East Kent NHS Trusts, last year, also found serious failures leading to the avoidable deaths of babies.

Two in five NHS maternity services are now ranked "inadequate" or "requires improvement" the worst. level since maternity specific ratings were introduced in 2018. Just four per cent have been ranked "outstanding" and the number declared "good" has fallen to 57 per cent, from 64 percent.