The earlier authorities was “asleep at the wheel” in relation to maternity security and oversaw a “number of lost opportunities” to enhance care within the sector, a senior midwife has mentioned.
Donna Ockenden listed 15 areas for “immediate and essential action” when she printed a report into the maternity failings at Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Belief in March 2022.
She additionally backed the UK’s first ever parliamentary inquiry into beginning trauma which discovered this yr that excellent care for pregnant girls “is the exception rather than the rule”.
The senior midwife beforehand mentioned households have been “let down” by failure to enhance providers.
Ms Ockenden, now the chair of an impartial evaluation into maternity providers on the Nottingham College Hospitals NHS Belief, is looking for a gathering with Well being Secretary Wes Streeting as she warns failings in care are placing moms and infants in danger.
Talking to Sky Information after the hospital’s annual basic assembly in the present day, Ms Ockenden mentioned: “There have been plenty of misplaced alternatives to enhance maternity care… [former Conservative health secretaries] Sajid Javid and Jeremy Hunt gave very generously of their time to me because the chair of that evaluation.
“The federal government absolutely endorsed all these findings.
“Sajid Javid mentioned that all the things that we’d written in that report can be launched swiftly.
“We then had multiple changes of secretary of state. The government were quite frankly asleep at the wheel as regards to maternity services, and we’re still in a position where we need accelerated progress on those immediate and essential actions.”
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Mr Streeting, who grew to become well being secretary after Labour received the overall election this yr, has confirmed he can be pleased to satisfy Ms Ockenden to debate maternity care.
He advised Sky Information earlier: “In terms of the disaster in all maternity providers throughout the nation, it is among the greatest points that retains me awake at evening worrying concerning the high quality of care being delivered in the present day and the danger of catastrophe greeting girls in labour tomorrow.
“I believe that what we’ve seen within the case of particular trusts are issues and threat elements that exist, proper throughout maternity providers throughout the nation.
“And we’re eager to guarantee that on the subject of the work that Donna Ockenden has already finished, we guarantee that these classes are utilized not simply within the case of these particular trusts, however really proper throughout the nation.
“And we’re determined to get this right.”
A spokesman for the Conservatives declined to remark, as did Jeremy Hunt, who was Tory well being secretary from 2012 to 2018. Sajid Javid, who was well being secretary from 2021 to 2022, has been approached for remark.
