Contribution
The hon. Member is absolutely right to raise the case of Dan and Fiona. I was lucky enough to have them give up their time to share their heartbreaking story with me. They are at the forefront of the fight for an independent inquiry in Leeds. The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care said that he would look at whether there is cause for an investigation but those families are still waiting to find out if that will go ahead.
I met with families like Dan and Fiona to ensure that the questions I ask the Minister today are the questions that those families would ask if they had the opportunity. I cannot begin to imagine how exhausting it is to relive the moments that their lives changed forever, over and over again, in the pursuit of better outcomes for the next family. I will include a number of their questions to the Minister in my closing remarks, but I reflect that the families who were able to share their experiences with me were, overwhelmingly, white, middle class, often highly educated and that many had medical backgrounds or academic careers before going through this trauma. Lord Darzi’s report found that black women are almost three times as likely to die in childbirth as white women and that neonatal mortality in the most deprived areas is more than double that in the least deprived. Who speaks up for those families? Who ensures transparency and accountability for those with a fundamental distrust of the medical profession, or those who have learning disabilities, or English as their second language, because those people are not supported in navigating the complex systems that are in place?
Negligence claims in obstetrics account for just 13% of the volume of litigation received by NHS Resolution in 2023-24 but cost over £1 billion every year—nearly 60% of the total cost of clinical negligence claims. Beyond financial costs, those failures carry a devastating human toll. If we truly invest in our maternity services, in both professionals and facilities, more than money is saved; lives are saved.
In conclusion, I would like to ask the following questions of the Minister. First, the previous Government were supportive of the Ockenden review, and previous health Ministers had made assurances that maternity services were going to get the support they desperately needed. I know the Secretary of State for Health is supportive of the Ockenden review and has met many bereaved parents since the general election. He has assured those parents that fixing maternity is a priority for the Government, and that actions would be outlined publicly before Christmas 2024. He came back shortly after Christmas saying they needed more time. That response is now two months overdue. Can the Minister assure me that those families will hear an update in the near future?
Do the Government support all the Ockenden report’s immediate and essential actions arising from the review into the Shrewsbury and Telford trust? How will the Government ensure that all integrated care boards and trusts across the UK implement all the actions? What support will be provided to the trusts to achieve that, and prevent a postcode lottery of maternity care?
If those IEAs are implemented, what will be the Government’s measure of success? We currently have no national data regarding preventable deaths. It is the charitable sector that has determined that more than 800 baby deaths a year could have been prevented. One of the IEAs is a long-term plan to secure a safe maternity workforce and improve training. Can we expect to see maternity care professionals, including neonatologists, obstetricians and anaesthetists, included alongside midwifery colleagues in the refresh of the 10-year workforce plan for the NHS?
An overriding theme in my conversations with bereaved parents was the CQC’s hesitancy to prosecute. Cases were often supported in the first instance, but families were then informed, just days before the three-year statute of limitations expired, that the CQC would no longer be seeking a prosecution, with the families having no time to appeal that decision. Does the Minister believe that a three-year statute of limitations is appropriate when families dealing with bereavement are often not even considering a case in the first 12 months?
Does the Minister have any concerns about the CQC’s ability as a regulator? Or does she agree with the parents that there is a reluctance to prosecute by the leadership of CQC when there have been failures in patient care? Does the Minister support calls from Sands and Tommy’s charities for all triage phonelines to be recorded, as currently they are not?
Finally, parents repeatedly reported to me that the bereavement care they received felt like a tick-box exercise, with a lot of focus on the mother and a lack of communication and support for the father, when both have suffered that bereavement. Does the Minister agree that communication could be vastly improved across maternity services in all cases, so that both parents have the opportunity to understand what happened in those most vulnerable hours?
I would like to finish by thanking every Member who has come to talk about this important issue. I also thank Donna Ockenden and all who contributed to the creation of the review. My greatest thanks go to all the families who gave up their time to share their stories with me, reminding me that those babies were people, not statistics. They are loved, they are missed, and they deserved better.