Mumsnet is backing the call for a statutory inquiry into maternity care - here's why

For more than twenty years, we have heard pretty much daily on Mumsnet from women who have had deeply upsetting experiences of substandard maternity care, with lasting consequences for them, their children and their families.? They write about psychological trauma that leads to years of flashbacks; about physical tearing which leaves them incontinent; about medical professionals who ignore or belittle their choices.? In the worst cases, they write about their babies who have died as a result of mistakes or incompetence.

The worst outcomes are - thankfully - rare.? But there is no doubt that hundreds of thousands of women have had horrific experiences.? The anecdotal accounts we hear on site every day are backed up by the data.? Inspections by the CQC have judged 67% of maternity units not up to standard – rated ‘inadequate’ or ‘requires improvement’ – when it comes to safety, and 49% not up to standard overall.? In a survey of more than 1000 mums conducted on Mumsnet earlier this year,? a quarter of the women asked said that the maternity care they received left them or their baby in danger.? A separate survey found that 79% of mothers had suffered either physical or psychological trauma giving birth.? There are also significantly worse outcomes for Black and Asian women in maternity care.? Black women are four times more likely to die during pregnancy or while giving birth than white women, and Asian women are twice as likely to die as white women.? And despite the best efforts of campaigners, there is no indication that care is improving - if anything, it's getting worse.

This is a level of failure which would be unacceptable in any other NHS service.? But with a few honourable exceptions, politicians seem unwilling to acknowledge and address the scale of the problem.? What makes it even more confounding is that in a time of constrained public spending, with every penny analysed, ï¿¡2.6 billion was paid out in the last financial year in compensation for women and babies harmed by negligent NHS care.? This lack of attention is as true of the opposition as it is of the government.? Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting has spoken extensively of the need for NHS reform - but said little about maternity care beyond a pledge to increase midwife and health visitor numbers.??

There’s no doubt that maternity staff are stretched to their limit and that this is a contributory factor.? We hear regularly on Mumsnet from midwives who cannot provide the care they want to because of staffing constraints, often with serious consequences for their own mental health.? But this crisis is not just about staffing or funding - there is a much wider cultural problem. It is not a coincidence that these repeated failures occur in a section of the NHS which exclusively treats women and their babies.? Too often, women are ignored and their concerns are trivialised.? They are not given enough information about their choices ahead of birth, they are belittled and ignored while in labour, and they are failed by inadequate postnatal care which all too often treats their physical and mental health as a tick box exercise.? Medical advances mean birth should be safer than ever. ? Instead we have reached a point where women's expectations are so low that they feel they are ‘lucky’ if they walk out of hospital with a healthy baby - no matter the mental or physical ordeal they go through to reach that point.

In recent months, a group of brave parents have spoken out about their experiences, and shared the stories of the babies they have lost because of failures in care. Together, they have called for a statutory public inquiry into maternity services.? Today, we’re announcing that Mumsnet - the UK’s largest community of parents - is backing that call.??

There have been three separate inquiries into maternity failures in English NHS trusts in the past five years, and there is another one ongoing.? But repeated local inquiries will not allow us to make the systemic national improvements required.? An overarching national inquiry is the only way to understand how the failures in different parts of the system are connected.? We need to investigate every aspect of maternity services - from the training that doctors and midwives receive as students, to practices on labour wards, to how postnatal checks are conducted.? This is the only way to establish what is going wrong and, most importantly, work out how to fix it.??

We cannot allow the status quo to continue.? Without an inquiry - and a commitment to acting on its findings - hundreds of thousands of parents will continue to suffer substandard care, with lasting consequences for them, and their children.? The government must act to ensure we do not continue to make the same mistakes.