The Department of Health and Social Care has today announced the 14 NHS Trusts selected for review as part of the rapid national maternity and neonatal safety investigation chaired by Baroness Amos.
Professor Ranee Thakar, President of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, commented:
“There is no doubt today’s announcement will create real anxiety among women, families and staff at the fourteen Trusts selected. It is vital that the review process now brings everyone together with compassion, a commitment to transparency and appropriate support.
“Too many women and babies are not getting the safe, compassionate care they deserve and the maternity workforce is on its knees, with staff leaving the profession. The RCOG is committed to working with the government, our members and women to support the investigation and to re-build a world-class maternity system.”
The investigation, being chaired by Baroness Valerie Amos, aims to look at the selected NHS Trusts but also across the entire maternity system, and to coalesce the findings of past maternity safety reviews into one national set of actions.
The RCOG fully supports the government’s commitment to bring women and families, maternity staff and local NHS leaders together to achieve lasting improvements. Critically, the review must include patient outcomes and experience data, and seek out the experiences of a diverse range of families to represent everyone who has been affected by poor care, alongside maternity staff experience data.
In the College’s dialogue with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, and the Department of Health and Social Care, the College has advocated for the review to be data-led and focused on outcomes. To provide a realistic and robust picture of performance and outcomes the review should consider national measures on perinatal mortality, neonatal mortality and rates of stillbirth, available from existing monthly data sets. This will be critical to identifying the drivers and impact of inequalities, and the barriers to making improvements, set out by Baroness Amos as key to the investigation scope.
The RCOG is committed to supporting high-quality maternity care for all women and pregnant people and to supporting the government’s investigation over this year. The College our role in supporting the provision of safe, personalised and compassionate maternity care through our role as an educator, developing the curriculum, producing clinical guidance, and supporting clinicians’ professional development through exams and training.
RCOG press office: pressoffice@rcog.org.uk T +44 (0) 7986 183167
Further information:
- RCOG statement on the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care announcement on maternity care here.
- RCOG statement of the announcement of the Chair for the maternity and neonatal safety investigation here.
- RCOG Maternity Safety programme, available here.
- Avoiding Brain Injury in Childbirth programme, available here.
- RCOG membership advice and support service information is available here.