Tory Health Minister points apology after damning MPs’ report into delivery trauma

A Health Minister issued an apology after an MPs’ report found poor care in maternity services is “frequently tolerated as normal”.

A parliamentary inquiry heard harrowing stories including accounts of stillbirth, life-changing injuries, and babies born with cerebral palsy caused by oxygen deprivation. More than 1,300 women shared their experiences with some detailing being mocked or shouted at and “denied basic needs such as pain relief”.

MPs said in many cases the trauma was caused by failures before and during labour while errors were “frequently” covered up by hospitals. Detailing some of the most devastating accounts, they said women “had experienced birth injuries, causing a lifetime of pain and bowel incontinence.

“Many of these women said they could no longer work, and described their injuries as having destroyed their sense of self-worth.” Some women from ethnic minority groups also reported “direct and indirect racism”.

The inquiry said the poor-quality of postnatal care “as an almost-universal theme”, adding: “Women shared stories of being left in blood-stained sheets, or of ringing the bell for help but no one coming”.

They added: “We also heard from maternity professionals who reported a maternity system in which overwork and understaffing was endemic. Some referred to a culture of bullying. The picture to emerge was of a maternity system where poor care is all-too-frequently tolerated as normal, and women are treated as an inconvenience.

The Birth Trauma Inquiry is now calling for a national plan to improve maternity care alongside a new maternity commissioner reporting directly to the PM. It also demands that more midwives, obstetricians and anesthetists are recruited, trained and retained to ensure “safe levels of staffing”.

Health minister Maria Caulfield said that maternity services “have not been where we want them to be” when she was challenged about the findings today. Asked on Sky News whether there was an apology to be made to those affected by birth trauma, Ms Caulfield said: “Absolutely. I recognise as women’s health minister that maternity services have not been where we want them to be.

The all-party inquiry was led by Conservative MP Theo Clarke and Labour MP Rosie Duffield. Ms Clarke, who pushed for the inquiry after saying in Parliament that she felt she was going to die after giving birth in 2022, said there is an unacceptable “postcode lottery on maternity services”.

She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “There does seem to be a postcode lottery for maternity care in this country, and that’s something that I don’t think is acceptable, that depending on where you live, you will literally be offered a different level of care in terms of how you’re given support during childbirth and afterwards.”

Describing her own experience, she added: “I remember pressing the emergency button after I’d come out of surgery and a lady came in and said she couldn’t help me, said it wasn’t her baby, wasn’t her problem and walked out and left me there – so we need to make sure there are safe levels of staffing.”

The Health Secretary Victoria Atkins said she was grateful for the report and “those brave women who came forward to share their harrowing experiences”. She added: “I am determined to improve the quality and consistency of care for women throughout pregnancy, birth and the critical months that follow, and I fully support work to develop a comprehensive national strategy to improve our maternity services.”

Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting added: “Superb, groundbreaking report into birth trauma with sobering findings and serious recommendations. Labour will work in the same bipartisan spirit to deliver results.”