Maternity safety campaigner backs national inquiry

The announcement of an investigation into maternity care in England has been welcomed by a bereaved mother who has been campaigning for safety improvements for more than a decade.

Rhiannon Davies, who lost her daughter Kate in 2009 due to mistakes made by the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust (SATH), said: "It's clear that [Health Secretary] Wes Streeting has listened to the families."

But while backing the inquiry, which was announced on Monday, she sounded a note of caution, stating that change must ultimately come from "clinicians on the ground".

The probe is to look at some of the the worst-performing maternity and neonatal services, and report back in December.

Prior to the announcement, Streeting met parents who lost babies in a series of maternity scandals at various NHS trusts. He said the investigation would "make sure these families get the truth and the accountability they deserve".

Ms Davies, who now lives in Hereford, was involved in those discussions last week, and said the proposals he showed to the families then were "very very different" to what emerged on Monday.

"He clearly listened to us when we told him that what he was proposing was nowhere near enough," she said, adding Streeting was "on the side of" families.

She did, though, suggest bereaved parents in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were likely to feel disappointed by the focus on England.

Ms Davies's daughter Kate was six hours old when she died. A campaign by Ms Davies and Kate's father Richard Stanton culminated in the Ockenden Review of maternity care at SATH, which concluded catastrophic and repeated failures led to the deaths of more than 200 babies.

Making the announcement on Monday, Streeting apologised on behalf of the NHS to those families who had suffered avoidable harm.

It comes after a series of maternity scandals including those in East Kent, Nottingham and Shrewsbury and Telford.

The inquiry will initially review up to 10 maternity and neonatal units, the identity of which has yet to be decided, although it was confirmed University Hospitals Sussex and Leeds would feature.

Ms Davies said that based on discussions, she expected a "national maternity and neonatal taskforce" to be chaired by Streeting.

She stated that such development encouraged her that families were being heard.

That was different, she said, to 2009, when she first started her fight - a campaign which had led to this point, she added.

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