For Baby Loss Awareness Week 2024 (BLAW), Enable Law’s specialist baby loss team has been reflecting on maternity services throughout England and Wales. The spotlight on maternity services naturally shines brighter during BLAW, and it’s clear, now more than ever, that a public inquiry is needed.
The need for a national maternity safety public inquiry
In light of the recent change of government and MPs across the country, including Wes Streeting’s acknowledgment that the NHS is “broken”, there is a renewed push for a national maternity safety public inquiry to be announced. A public inquiry happens when there is public concern about a specific event (such as the COVID-19 public inquiry) or series of events, and the intention is to prevent it from happening again.
Over the past 2 decades, there have been numerous inquiries into maternity care in specific areas of the UK, for example the Kirkup Independent Inquiry in East Kent, the Ockenden Maternity Review in Shrewsbury, the Derby and Burton review and the ongoing Ockenden Review in Nottingham. Whilst there have been some unique points to each inquiry, they tend to identify the same issues time and time again and similar recommendations are made. Understandably, this has caused much frustration and distress as babies and mothers are continuing to die or be harmed avoidably. Rightfully, families ask “why are the same mistakes continuing to happen when we already know what the issues are?”.
Who is behind the Maternity Safety Alliance and what are they trying to achieve?
In October 2023, a group of strong and passionate families who have been personally affected by the continuing failings in maternity care across the UK, came together to form the Maternity Safety Alliance. The group campaign in their baby’s memories for a statutory public inquiry into maternity safety and wrote to the then Secretary of State for Health and Social Care setting out why this is needed.
A national public inquiry would be different from the previous and ongoing reviews and inquiries as it will look at the maternity system as a whole. A public inquiry will have access to more data (from hospitals across the UK) making it easier to identify common problems as well as areas of good practice that could be replicated elsewhere. They can force people to provide evidence and get input from numerous experts. They are also independent from the government and other bodies – this helps ensure that the final report is as accurate as possible, without fear of criticism.
However, agreeing to an inquiry isn’t the end of the road, the government will also need to commit to putting the recommendations into action, including providing any funding that is needed. Every parent and baby in the UK deserves safe maternity care and the best chance possible of a happy and healthy outcome.
Enable Law represents Alex Barr, a member of the Maternity Safety Alliance whose baby, Marnie, was stillborn in April 2020.
Enable Law’s specialist baby loss team has supported bereaved parents for over a decade. Some of our specialist baby loss lawyers have explained why they feel it is important to back the call for an independent review:
Nicola Rawlinson-Weller, Managing Associate reflects that “The ultimate aim of parents and the legal process is to try and ensure that lessons are learnt from the mistakes made, so that no other parent has to go through the same heartache. We encourage Trusts to do this, but it is clear from the families we support that this isn’t happening often enough or quickly enough. We sadly see the same issues in the same Trusts again and again. Working with the families that I do is a privilege. However, I hope that an inquiry can reduce the number of parents needing to speak to me in the first place. Reducing baby loss should be a top priority for everyone in society, and I believe a public inquiry is the best way to achieve this.”
Enable Law supports the need for a public inquiry and hope that this is something the new government will engage with.
If you would like to support the call for a national public inquiry, you can fill in the form on the Maternity Safety Alliance website.
