Grieving families who lost babies due to NHS failings hit out at maternity investigation
Families “suffering endlessly” after losing babies due to failures in the NHS are being sidelined by a swift review of maternity services, a campaign group has claimed.
A woman whose daughter died in 2022 told how victims were forced to “squeeze” their experiences into eight minutes, with some re-traumatized by having to choose the top causes of their babies’ deaths.
The Maternity Safety Alliance has renewed its call for a statutory inquiry into NHS maternity services, urging the Government to “abandon this performance approach”.
But a spokesman for the National Maternity and Newborn Inquiry (NMNI) argued that a rapid review would allow improvements to be made more quickly than would be possible through a statutory inquiry.
NMNI was commissioned by Health Minister Wes Streeting in June last year.
The inquiry is being led by Baroness Valerie Amos and will examine 12 NHS trusts, with its report expected to be published in the spring.
The Maternity Safety Alliance has published new criticism of the process, claiming the timeline was “compressed” and families’ involvement was “limited to sharing their experiences rather than participating in decision-making processes”.
According to the group, eight minutes per person are allocated to share experiences in panels organized to listen to grieving and damaged families.
Emily Barley, whose daughter Beatrice died in 2022 due to failings at Barnsley Hospital, co-founded the Maternity Safety Alliance.
The 37-year-old, who now lives in Cornwall, told the Press Association that he thought the review “lacked the depth and robustness that we really need in any research into motherhood”.
Inspectors spend two days at each trust involved in the review, which Ms Barley said was “not enough time to understand what’s going on”.
“When they meet with family panels, they primarily meet with a select few people, so there aren’t many people who can speak directly to the review,” he added.
“Then they are given eight minutes, which is not enough time to get into the real details of what happened and who did what.
“It’s not just about what happened during your baby’s death or injury or your injury. It’s about what happened afterwards, the attitudes of the staff and what happened during the inquests, because that’s all part of why babies continue to die.”
Last month Baroness Amos called for evidence for the NMNI, which will be open until March 17.
Two surveys are available: one for women who experience pregnancy and use maternity services, and the other for people who support someone throughout pregnancy.
Ms Barley described this element of the investigation as an “insult”.
“This is an insult to the people whose babies died,” he said.
“People are expected to compress their experiences of what is happening into a 500-word limit.
“For many families, we’re talking about incidents that occur over days or even weeks and involve multiple staff members. That’s impossible to do.”
“People are being put into a really re-traumatizing situation and being told ‘this is your chance to be heard, to have your say,’ and then they’re having to decide what the most important parts are, what the most important reasons for your baby’s death are. That’s not good.”
Ms Barley told PA she was “pushed into the next room and ignored” after she went into labor with Beatrice.
Monitoring showed her baby’s heart rate had slowed, but she was transferred to a ward rather than having an emergency caesarean section.
“They then spent almost an hour doing what I can only describe as chitchat,” Ms Barley said.
Staff eventually brought a portable ultrasound machine and discovered Beatrice dead.
In December, Baroness Amos published her initial reflections on the first three months of the inquiry, saying nothing had prepared her for “the unacceptable scale of care that women and families have received and continue to receive”.
The report showed that the NHS recorded 748 recommendations regarding maternity and newborn care in the last decade, as well as detailed discrimination against women of color, working-class women, young parents and women with mental health problems.
But Ms Barley described the document as a “waste of time”.
“It repeated everything we’ve heard before, which I think the entire review will probably do,” he added.
In January, Mr Streeting said he was “keeping the option of a public inquiry open” but stressed the process could take years.
A statement from the Maternity Safety Alliance said it was “deeply concerned” by the expedited review and that it lacked the power to “provide justice for grieving and harmed families or implement meaningful improvements.”
“Many families have been enduring endless suffering for years without taking any responsibility,” he added in the statement.
“This is not something to be rushed or rushed.
“Children and mothers who have died or been harmed deserve this to be done properly, no matter how long it takes, not to ‘quickly’ fit into a political agenda.
“We ask the government to abandon this performance approach and establish a truly independent, transparent and robust statutory inquiry that can hold institutions to account and ensure safe maternity care for all.”
A spokesman for the NMNI said its aim was to “develop and publish a set of national recommendations to drive the improvements needed to ensure high quality and safe maternity and neonatal care across England”.
“This is a rapid review so improvements can be made quicker than would be possible through a statutory public inquiry,” they added.
“A national maternity and newborn taskforce is being established, chaired by the Secretary of State. The taskforce will use the recommendations made by Baroness Amos’s inquiry to develop a new national action plan to promote improvements in maternity and newborn care.”
