INTERVIEW OPPORTUNITIES Dr Jack and Sarah Hawkins, parents of Baby Harriet and whistleblowers of the Nottingham Maternity Scandal
Members of the Maternity Safety Alliance, a group of families harmed and bereaved by NHS negligence, have called for Wes Streeting to order a statutory public inquiry on maternity safety in England following a meeting with him this afternoon. In that meeting the parents whose babies were killed by hospitals in Barnsley, Nottingham, Leeds, Hampshire, Oxford, and Birmingham persuaded Streeting to drop his “dangerous” maternity care plan, which he had been set to announce on 23rd June, and asked him to call a public inquiry instead.
The bereaved parents had been horrified to learn of Streeting’s plans for maternity care which had included:
- Putting NHS England’s Maternity Safety Support Programme in the primary position to drive change, despite its poor track record. The parents argued that this would fail yet again and more mothers and babies will be killed and harmed as a result.
- A new ‘data dashboard’ which he said would drive accountability, but bereaved parents argued would be falsified by corrupt NHS leaders, just as has been done so many times before.
- A range of other measures, including staff training and ‘support’ for hospitals, which Maternity Safety Alliance members argue would be just as ineffective as their predecessors as nothing in the plan addressed the underlying causes of NHS negligence, namely a clinical culture of not listening to women and totally disregarding best practice, and a leadership culture of cover ups and corruption.
- On inequalities in maternity care, Streeting’s plan was performative, ignored structural racism, and meant Black and Brown mothers and babies would continue to die and be harmed at higher rates than white.
- The plan also proposed a ‘restorative justice’ pathway, which the bereaved parents considered to be an insult to their children, saying “they and we deserve nothing short of real justice”.
- Streeting had also rejected calls for local Ockenden style inquiries in Leeds and Sussex, stating that he was assured they had the right support in place despite dishonesty, denialism, and avoidable deaths and harm continuing to take place.
The Maternity Safety Alliance now understands that all of these plans have been dropped and Streeting and his team are going back to the drawing board. The Alliance now urges the Secretary of State to recognise that failings in maternity care are a result of NHS corruption, a callous disregard for the lives of babies, and a rotten culture, and calls on him to order a statutory public inquiry on maternity safety in England. The Maternity Safety Alliance are hopeful that Wes Streeting will reconsider and for there to now be a Public Inquiry, along with inquiries into individual trusts.
Maternity Safety Alliance: “We are all so glad that the grossly flawed plan put forward by the Department for Health and Social Care, and the organisations feeding into it, has been dropped. That it was ever proposed shows that the people in charge of ensuring safe maternity care for all, have failed to grasp the depth and scale of the failings within England’s maternity services.”
“We believe that after listening to us today, Wes Streeting is beginning to understand the true nature of what is going on in maternity care and how our children are being killed and harmed. He now needs to take the next step and order a statutory public inquiry on maternity safety in England. This will be the only way to ensure the truth comes out, that those responsible for the deaths and harm to babies and mothers are held to account, and that necessary changes are made to make maternity services in this country truly safe for every mother and every baby.”
All interview requests should be made to Scala:
t.0114 4070159 m. 07881 780608 or m. 07515004264
e. natalierodgers@scala.uk.com e. Rebeccafinley@scala.uk.com
