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Health Policy InsightEmily Barley, founder of Maternity Safety Alliance, says recommendation in Amos report will not solve wider cultural problems
The appointment of a national maternity commissioner would be “fundamentally dangerous”, a bereaved mother who founded a maternity safety campaign group has warned.
Emily Barley, whose daughter Beatrice died because of failings at Barnsley hospital in 2022, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the recommendation for a maternity commissioner in England in the Amos review was “not going to do what we need to move maternity safety forwards”.
Maternity triage services – the childbirth equivalent of A&E – need an urgent overhaul, including more staff on duty, so that women’s concerns are acted on more quickly.
Families should get the right to seek a fresh, independent investigation when things go wrong if they are not happy with the hospital’s own inquiry.
The NHS’s “brutal” and “cruel” system of agreeing compensation with harmed and bereaved families should be replaced by a new process in which hospitals admit errors immediately.
The NHS must root out racism and discrimination that is “embedded throughout the maternity and neonatal system”.
Continue reading...Drug-resistant bacteria are no longer confined to hospital settings but are spreading into communities in every country
Why should a surge in sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in Europe be a concern across Africa or for people who don’t consider themselves to be at risk? Because it points to a bigger problem: the ease with which drug-resistant infections are now spreading, and not just in hospitals but within the community too.
The speed and scale at which people travel and interact in our interconnected world is increasingly helping to drive this, allowing drug-resistant pathogens to move rapidly through populations and across the world – including between high-income countries and low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where the burden is often greatest and surveillance more limited.
Continue reading...Guardian investigation exposes full links between a US business linked to baby deaths around the world and Australian ‘birth keeper’ Emily Lal, the central witness at the inquest into the death of a Melbourne wellness influencer
Find more from The birth keepers series here
During her time at the helm of a multimillion-dollar organisation linked to baby deaths around the world, Emilee Saldaya has always avowed one thing: she’s never heard of a woman dying after a freebirth.
“I’ve never heard of a mother dying in childbirth in the sovereign birth world,” the Free Birth Society founder said in a December 2024 appearance on The Way Forward podcast, adding: “In the sovereign birth world we aren’t losing mothers.”
Continue reading...Amos review sets out recommendations for government, but falls short on systemic racism and traumatic births
The findings of Lady Amos’ review into maternity and neonatal services across England, which state the system is ultimately no longer fit for purpose, are unsurprising. The systemic failures and inadequacies of these services have been uncovered in several reports already, including Donna Ockenden’s review of the “toxic” Nottingham NHS trust published last week.
But what this report does offer are a set of recommendations for the government to implement. Amos states that if they were to be delivered in full then “the overall safety and quality of maternity and neonatal care in England will be materially and sustainably improved”. But how far do these recommendations go, and what will it take for them to be implemented?
Continue reading...Pay will be 35.2% higher on average compared with four years ago after series of strikes that have cost NHS £1bn
Resident doctors in England have voted to accept a new government deal on pay and jobs, bringing an end to strike action that has cost the NHS £1bn since last summer.
The British Medical Association had called off a strike at the last minute earlier this month to put the offer to members.
Continue reading...Readers respond to the findings of the Ockenden inquiry, which revealed that more than 500 mothers and babies came to harm or died as a result of inadequate care in Nottingham
Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett asks why women are so routinely ignored in their maternity care (Belittled, ignored or gaslit – now we know the true cost of not listening to pregnant women, 25 June). Our research on formal reports about women’s poor maternity care identifies various reasons why women are not listened to, and they all start with their accounts being given less credibility because of prejudices held against them.
Gender-based prejudices carry disturbing echoes of historical patriarchal assumptions and myths about the mysteries of female bodies. They lead to women being perceived as anxious, hysterical or irrational, and can result in their symptoms being dismissed as psychological rather than physical, if they are taken account of at all.
Continue reading...Holistic care for incurably ill people has to include discussions about death and dying – but getting there is hard
It could be her usual generosity or disquiet, subtly disguised, but she leads by asking about “the kids”. Mine, not hers.
The question from a patient who has known me for years is a reminder that goodwill in medicine goes both ways. I scroll to a photo of my daughter, flanked by her brothers.
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