BBK Manifesto: Conduct a nationwide review into maternity care and birth trauma

We are supporting calls from the Maternity Safety Alliance for a national inquiry into maternity care in our Manifesto for Injured People.

There have been multiple high-profile maternity scandals: Shrewsbury, East Kent, Northwick Park, Morecambe Bay and Nottingham to name but a few. Mothers and their babies have died needlessly due to medical negligence.

This ‘whack-a-mole’ strategy of individual trust inquiries is not working. Currently 65% of maternity services are classed as inadequate or require improvement for safety. These scandals are continuing to pop up, as you can see with the recent calls for an investigation in Leicester. It does seem these maternity scandals are not a one off but instead represent wider institutional problems with maternity care in the NHS.

We have seen many complications from Caesarean Section deliveries. Like any serious operation, complications can occur. However, we speak to women complaining of severe pain or who feel there is something wrong after the surgery, which is then dismissed by their medical advisors, leading to more serious problems developing such as sepsis from bowel perforations.

We have seen many women who have been sent home following childbirth only to return later with a breakdown in their inadequately performed perineal repair.

These women all report they were told the pain and incontinence they were experiencing was normal following childbirth. It is only when these women could not function at home that they sought help. By that point, corrective treatment is less successful, and our clients are left managing permanent avoidable (or more severe than would have otherwise been the case) injuries.

In 2023, we settled a case for several million pounds after our client suffered a perineal tear during birth which was ignored for too long before it was repaired. Our client underwent a procedure, which should have been swift and uncomplicated, but unfortunately was performed inadequately and the results were life changing.

Sadly, our client cannot work, is largely housebound due to faecal incontinence and now has a permanent stoma in place as a result of the mistakes made in her care. The physical and emotional toll from something which was dismissed as ‘normal after childbirth’ is devastating. This is not an isolated case.

Therefore, we are supporting calls from the Maternity Safety Alliance for a national inquiry into maternity care. The Government needs to urgently open this inquiry to stop any more needless deaths or injuries of mothers and babies.

Any review would also need to have a specific focus on Black maternal health.

Research has found maternal mortality for Black women is currently almost four times higher than for white women. There are also disparities for women of Asian and mixed ethnicity.

At Bolt Burdon Kemp we have previously run a webinar series on the impact of racial bias in medicine. You can find out more about that series here.

We need to fix this broken system and a nationwide review would be a good place to start.

This blog is part of our #ChampioningChange Campaign, specifically, Bolt Burdon Kemp LLP’s 2024 Manifesto for Injured People. In this campaign we call for politicians and candidates to prioritise injured people as they go into the 2024 General Election. This work is informed by our clients’ experiences and our partnerships with charities which support our clients and others like them. If you would like to read more about our full manifesto you can do so here.