The midwife tasked by government and the NHS to investigate maternity scandals has criticised ministers for failing to provide enough funding to address the problems.
Donna Ockenden said the money provided so far was ‘nowhere near good enough’ and progress made to improve services had been ‘extremely disappointing’.
After her investigation into the deaths and harm of 295 babies and nine mothers at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals Trust, the Department of Health and Social Care endorsed recommendations to invest an additional £200million to £350million per year into maternity services.
Ms Ockenden said pregnant women would not be safe to give birth until her full raft of recommendations were implemented.
And in 2021, the current chancellor Jeremy Hunt, in his previous role as chair of the Commons’ health committee, said the investment should be made ‘immediately’.
According to NHS England, an additional £165million per year has been invested since 2021, and the Department of Health and Social Care said this would rise to £187million from April.
Donna Ockenden (pictured) said the money provided so far was ‘nowhere near good enough’ and progress made to improve services had been ‘extremely disappointing’. After her investigation into the deaths and harm of 295 babies and nine mothers at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals Trust, the Department of Health and Social Care endorsed recommendations to invest an additional £200million to £350million per year into maternity services. However, Ms Ockenden told the Health Service Journal that the recent impact of inflation , pay awards, and other rising costs means the full £350 million is required
Katie Wilkins’ baby girl Maddison was stillborn in February 2013 at Royal Shrewsbury Hospital after midwives left her in a side room for 48 hours and failed to properly monitor her. A March 2022 probe into Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust found that 300 babies had died or been left brain-damaged due to ‘repeated errors in care’
Sarah and Tom Richford with their son Harry who died seven days after he was born in November 2017 at the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Hospital in Margate. East Kent Hospitals admitted failing to provide safe care for the mother and baby and was fined £733,000 in 2021. A 2022 probe into the trust revealed dozens of babies and mothers died or were injured during childbirth
However, Ms Ockenden told the Health Service Journal that the recent impact of inflation, pay awards, and other rising costs means the full £350million is required.
The senior midwife said: ‘What I would like to say loud and clear to the government is that we are broadly 50 per cent of the way there in receiving the money we know is needed for maternity services. That is nowhere near good enough.
‘There are workforce issues across [the whole team], whether that’s midwives, obstetricians or neonatologists, and it’s hardly surprising.
‘The government must now do more – whilst we were grateful for the endorsement [of her report], the lack of progress in providing what is known to be the required funding is extremely disappointing.’
Ms Ockenden said she was also very concerned to see the ‘apparent deterioration’ in maternity standards, as identified by the Care Quality Commission through its national inspection programme.
It found a record number of maternity services are failing to meet safety standards, with 65 per cent rated ‘inadequate’ or ‘require improvement’ for safety.
Ms Ockenden warned money for maternity services is being ‘spent anyway, but on the cost of harm, rather than provision of care that is systematically excellent’.
‘If we started making immediate improvements in care, today, very quickly, we would see the cost of harm reducing,’ she added.
Ms Ockenden is currently leading a probe into failures at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, which is set to be the largest to date with 1,800 families and 700 staff included.
Through her work, she said scores of overworked staff, leaders and worried families have reached out with concerns.
The graphic shows the NHS trusts in England that have logged the biggest drop in midwives between September 2022 and July 2023 — the latest data available. Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust has seen its midwife workforce drop 12.8 per cent over this nine-month period, while Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust has 8.8 per cent fewer staff compared to 10 months earlier, NHS workforce data shows
She told the HSJ: ‘Although workforce numbers in midwifery are stabilising, there remains an overall loss of senior and experienced staff, typically band 6 midwives, of several years duration.
‘Their concern is we’re getting a lot of new midwives joining the profession, which is to be welcomed, but they then don’t have the resources to support [newcomers] in those crucial first few years.
‘A constant cycle of recruitment is not helpful if we can’t retain.’
Hospitals have a shortage of 2,500 midwives, according to Royal College of Midwives estimates.
Ms Ockenden called for a major overhaul of maternity regulation and criticised the breadth of initiatives that services are required to report against.
She called for ‘urgent streamlining’, so boards are clear on what they must report and when.
She added: ‘Boards must also continue to voice concerns upwards – they do need to have accountability for safe maternity care, but they shouldn’t hesitate to speak out and speak up.’
The DHSC said additional funding for education and training places to bolster the wider NHS workforce would help create more midwife training places.
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