Shrewsbury’s shameful and deadly failings in maternity care must never be repeated

Today marks an important milestone for hundreds of families who have been seeking justice. The Ockenden Report lays bare the harrowing truth of what those families had to face, and why their fight for justice has been such a fierce one.

Cries for help going unheard. Parents having to try and resuscitate their own children because there was no one there to help. Women and babies dying needlessly because they simply were not listened to.

That women were silenced and ignored at their most vulnerable, when they were relying on the NHS to keep them safe, is shameful. No woman should ever have to face going into hospital to give birth, and not know whether she and her baby will come out alive.

These were not just one off or isolated incidents of negligence. This was the institutional failure of a system which failed to take up many opportunities to realise that it had a problem.

The alarming catalogue of failures had been highlighted by eight prior reviews, but the Shrewsbury NHS Trust did not act. We must have independent accountability and oversight of maternity services and trusts, to ensure no mothers or families ever have to go through this again.

The families who suffered at Shrewsbury deserve answers and a commitment to fix the culture that allowed them to be so badly failed by a system that should have kept them safe.

We are where we are today because of the persistence and resilience of those families, and their refusal to give up the fight to expose the failings revealed in the Ockenden Report.

The only comfort we can offer them is that their voices have been heard, and that we commit, as politicians across the political spectrum, to ensuring that these failings are never repeated. For too long, patient safety issues, and the voices of women, have been an afterthought, leading to the kind of crises we saw in Shrewsbury.

This needs to change. Patient safety must be a priority for both health professionals and ministers. The actions called for in Donna Ockenden’s report must be taken, so that every woman and child receives the best possible care.

It is not enough to just address the specific systemic issues which existed in Shrewsbury. The failings in maternity care across the NHS which have been allowed to persist for far too long must also be tackled.

Underpinning issues in maternity care, as is the case across so much of our NHS, is workforce. Only ten months ago, as a first-time mother, I experienced how stretched to the limit maternity services are. The NHS is now losing midwives faster than it can recruit them.

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A recent CQC survey shows that almost a quarter of women were unable to get help when they needed it during labour. Hundreds of pregnant women were turned away from maternity wards last year, because there weren’t the staff available to care for them.

Like all other areas of the NHS, maternity care has been hit hard by the pandemic. But as today’s review shows, these problems existed long before Covid.

If this government is serious about an NHS that delivers a safe service for every expectant mother across the country, then they must  provide it with enough doctors, nurses and midwives.

Only by recruiting, training and retaining a highly motivated workforce will the NHS be able to ensure that women receive care that meets their needs and prioritises their safety.

All the families who suffered so much at Shrewsbury wanted was security and respect. This is what every woman who puts themselves and their baby in the hands of the NHS deserves.

Feryal Clark is the shadow health minister who is leading Labour’s response to the review and MP for Enfield North