Harrowing actuality of NHS maternity companies revealed in damning report

Pregnant women are subject to a grim ‘postcode lottery of care’, leaving some treated like a ‘slab of meat’, a damning report ruled today.

The UK’s first parliamentary inquiry into birth trauma has found there is ‘shockingly poor quality’ in maternity services, with good care ‘the exception rather than the rule’. 

It heard evidence from more than 1,300 women, including how new mothers had been left in blood covered sheets for hours and even berated by midwives for having soiled themselves.

One woman carrying twins who went into premature labour at 19 weeks was told by a consultant to ‘stop stressing’ after she lost her first baby, the report found. 

Another, who was dismissed as an ‘anxious mother’, later lost her baby from complications she warned about. 

Health secretary Victoria Atkins today labelled the testimonies ‘harrowing’ and vowed to improve maternity care for ‘women throughout pregnancy, birth and the critical months that follow’.

NHS England chief executive Amanda Pritchard also said the experiences outlined in the report ‘are simply not good enough’. 

The all-party inquiry, led by Conservative MP Theo Clarke and Labour MP Rosie Duffield, is due to publish its full findings this morning. 

According to The Times, the report found ‘poor care is all frequently tolerated as normal, and women are treated as an inconvenience’.

Among its 12 recommendations included the creation of a maternity commissioner reporting to the Prime Minister.

Other key suggestions are to digitise mother’s health records and ‘provide support for fathers and ensure [a] nominated birth partner is continuously informed and updated during labour and post-delivery’.

Ms Clarke, who pushed for the inquiry after revealing in Parliament that she felt she was going to die after giving birth in 2022, told The Times: ‘We have listened to mums carefully and applaud their bravery in coming forward, sometimes with horrific testimony of how the system failed them and the mental, physical and economic cost of that failure.

‘The raft of recommendations we make, especially the appointment of a maternity commissioner, are all designed to end the postcode lottery on maternity services.’

The report detailed how one woman who suffered bowel problems after a traumatic birth and took her hospital to a tribunal for neglect after problems during labour was told by a doctor ‘why don’t I just a stick an anal plug in and get on with my day’.

Another described how her severe physical symptoms from birth trauma, including fatigue and tremors, were wrongly diagnosed as psychological, leading her to receive eight sessions of electroconvulsive therapy, which involves sending an electrical current through the brain.

One woman carrying twins went into premature labour at 19 weeks and lost her first baby.

‘I was told by one of the consultants to stop my crying, calm down and try to save the other baby,’ she told the report. 

His words were: ‘This baby was dead a long time anyway so you should stop stressing over it and let’s try to save the other one’,’ she said.

The second baby also died.

NHS England chief executive Amanda Pritchard said the experiences of the 1000-plus women who gave evidence to the inquiry were ‘simply not good enough’.

Meanwhile, Ms Atkins said she was ‘determined to improve the quality and consistency of care for women throughout pregnancy, birth and the critical months that follow’.

She added: ‘I am hugely grateful to Theo Clarke for her carefully considered report and all those brave women who came forward to share their harrowing experiences.’

In January, she shared her personal experience of the ‘darker corners’ of the NHS after giving birth as a patient with type one diabetes.

‘I want to reform our NHS and care system to make it faster, simpler and fairer for all of us and that includes women,’ she said.

Asked whether there was an apology to be made, women’s health minister Maria Caulfield also told Sky News today: ‘Absolutely. I recognise as women’s health minister that maternity services have not been where we want them to be.’ 

But she added the Government is already doing much of the work recommended in the report.

She told Times Radio: ‘We absolutely recognise what’s in the report. We are on track with rolling out some of these services to prevent this from happening in the first place but, when it does, better look after women.’

It comes as former Made in Chelsea star Louise Thompson yesterday revealed the truth behind her traumatic childbirth for first time.

The 34-year-old endured an agonising labour which saw her lose three-and-a-half litres of blood in three hours as she welcomed her son Leo. 

In an exert of her new book ‘Lucky: Learning to Live Again’, published in the Mail on Sunday, she recounted how she could ‘see immense amounts of my blood splattering all over the curtain’ and ‘splashing on to the floor below’ as she was rushed for an emergency C-section.

She was previously refused one despite feeling she was too small at 5ft and with a 6ft 3 partner to give birth naturally. 

She added: ‘No one gave us any reassurance; it was all like some sick nightmare.

‘Everyone in the room looked very distressed, I could feel their shaky hands on my body. If they’d allowed me to have a planned c-section, things could have been very different.’

The Birth Trauma Association charity says an estimated 20,000 women a year develop post-natal post traumatic stress disorder, and that as many as 200,000 women may also feel traumatised by childbirth and develop some of the symptoms of PTSD. 

About 65 per cent of the NHS’s budget to cover clinical negligence claims — which totalled £69.3 billion in 2022-23 — related to maternity and neonatal liabilities. 

The report’s publication also follows a litany of maternity failures including Shrewsbury and Telford and East Kent NHS Trusts, with a record number of services now failing to meet safety standards.

The Care Quality Commission found some 65 per cent are now rated ‘inadequate’ or ‘require improvement’ for safety.

Donna Ockenden, the senior midwife asked by the government and NHS England to investigate serious maternity scandals, today backed Ms Clarke’s inquiry.

She said the report ‘highlights the extent of the problem we know exists across maternity services in the UK’ 

She added she had given the government a ‘clear blueprint and roadmap’ for maternity services but ‘progress has been far too slow’. 

In an emotional speech in the House of Commons in October, Ms Clarke broke down as she described being rushed into emergency surgery after the birth of her daughter, terrified that she was going to die.

She bled heavily after suffering a third-degree tear and had to undergo a two-hour surgery without general anaesthetic, due to an earlier epidural.