BBK Manifesto: End the maternity care postcode lottery

BBK is calling for a centralised approach to maternity care to ensure consistent, high-quality health guidance for all women in the UK, irrespective of their location.

Currently each individual trust uses its own guidance for maternity care and a number of health conditions. This means expectation and levels of care can vary depending on where you live. It’s a damaging postcode lottery of health guidance.

This system is ineffective and not cost effective either, as each NHS trust is having to research and produce its own guidelines.

An example of this is the monitoring of gestational diabetes. Each trust has differing guidance. This means women who have gestational diabetes can be getting a vast range of guidance and medical care depending on where they happen to live.

As part of the inquiry into maternity services that we are calling for, there should also be investigations into how maternity advice is given and whether this could be centralised. The level and quality of health guidance should be the same regardless of where in the UK you live.

Divergent maternity care guidance across NHS trusts creates a damaging postcode lottery.

The NHS is a national service, and consistency in approach is crucial to ensure fair health outcomes across the country.

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.