‘It’s galling, as a bereaved parent': Britain's maternity scandal

Summary

Podcast Summary:

Podcast: The Story
Host: The Times
Episode: ‘It’s galling, as a bereaved parent': Britain's maternity scandal
Date: June 30, 2026

---

Overview

This episode delves into the findings and fallout of the long-awaited Amos Report, a national investigation into England’s crisis-ridden maternity care. The hosts, alongside The Times’ leading health journalists and bereaved parents, examine systemic failures that have led to the deaths and trauma of hundreds of mothers and babies, the reasons for repeated inaction, and whether the latest recommendations will finally bring change.

---

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Amos Report: Scope and Context

• [03:26] The Amos Report provides, for the first time, a national overview of maternity care failings, summarizing evidence from 12 NHS trusts, national NHS leaders, staff, and affected families.
• [05:56] Previous major reports (Ockendon for Nottingham, Shrewsbury and Telford, East Kent, Morecambe Bay) focused on individual trusts, while the Amos Report is broader in scope.
• [07:21] The review was conducted in an unusually brisk timeframe (about seven months), analyzing over 10,000 documents and interviews with 450 families and 38 executives.
• [08:20] The report’s key recommendations include:
  • Establishing a statutory Maternity Commissioner to oversee change.
  • Improving, standardizing, and properly staffing the triage/assessment systems in maternity units.
  • Ending the current “cover up” culture and lack of accountability when things go wrong.

2. Katie and Rob’s Story – The Human Impact

• [02:27], [09:59] Katie experienced a textbook pregnancy, but her concerns during early labour (breathlessness, bleeding) were repeatedly dismissed. Delays in care led to a cardiac arrest en route to hospital, an emergency C-section in the reception area, and brain damage to her baby Abigail, who died days later.
• [10:44] Katie: “They didn’t really respond, as if they were listening to what I was saying. … She ended the call basically saying, well, you could come in, but there’s no rush.”
• [11:31] Rob: “I was woken up in intensive care and told that my baby was dying … I sort of thought to myself, this has to be a nightmare. … [The doctor told me Abigail was dying] and I thought, why didn’t they realize it would have been kinder to let me die too?”
• [13:10] Rob: “If you have a midwife focusing on a woman having a normal birthing experience at the expense of everything else, it isn’t safe. It wasn’t safe in our case. Our daughter died and the only thing that could have stopped that is us being in hospital.”

3. Normal Birth Ideology: Controversy and Critique

• [17:55] The report is criticized for minimizing the influence of “normal birth ideology”—the pursuit of natural, intervention-free birth even at risk to mother and baby. Several prior inquests (including Katie and Rob’s case) highlight these pressures as directly harmful.
• [18:26] Eleanor Hayward: “Amos concluded … we did not find that normal birth ideology was currently widespread in the maternity services we visited…”
• [19:25] Dr. Bill Kirkup, a respected figure in maternity investigations, resigned from the national maternity review in protest over the report’s failure to condemn this ideology more strongly.
• [33:35] Rob: “I’m convinced it is the reason that Abigail’s not here. Midwives following normal birth ideology as opposed to treating a patient as an individual. … until we actually tackle that properly, we’re not going to improve maternity services.”

4. Systemic and Cultural Failures

• [15:27] Baroness Amos: “There is an issue of misogyny … women saying, you just weren’t listened to. … I know my body. … This sense that women don’t understand their own bodies.”
• [16:17] Failings include persistent disregard for women’s reported symptoms, inadequate or delayed investigations after adverse events, and a “cover-up” culture.
• [28:00] Eleanor Hayward: “No one can say they didn’t know what was going wrong. … the issue … is cultural and systemic and links into sexism and racism. … We won’t take this seriously because it’s just women giving birth.”

5. Response from the Government and NHS

• [17:08] The government promises to implement recommendations in full, including creating the Maternity Commissioner and investing £41 million to address infrastructure (e.g., crumbling maternity wards).
• [29:38] A fundamental problem is the bottleneck between recommendations and implementation due to government dysfunction and frequent turnover among Health Secretaries.

6. Reactions from Bereaved Families and Advocates

• [23:12] Poppy Koronka: “I would say it is one of frustration and … disappointment in most of what she’s found.”
• [23:31] Katie: “There’s one good change … the triage service … that should help bring positive change to the first port of call.”
• [24:27] Parents and campaigners worry the recommendations are too high level, lack detail, and add bureaucratic layers rather than enforceable change.
• [24:59] Rob: “Is [the review process] going to truly be independent and is it going to have enough weight behind it that it can enforce changes on trusts?”
• [26:43] Katie: “We are obviously part of our own Ockendon Review now … I’m not convinced that she’s not going to be just saying exactly the same thing [in three years]. And that’s going to break me…”
• [35:14] Rob: “We just keep getting these top level, you know, we’ll tinker here and here, but no one seems to have … the authority or the will to actually say there is a deep rooted problem … It’s so galling as a bereaved parent.”

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• [03:55] Baroness Amos: “I took it on because I couldn’t believe we hadn’t fixed it. … despite these investigations, despite those reviews, this was continuing to happen time and time and time again.”
• [15:27] Baroness Amos: “There is an issue of misogyny. … This sense that women don’t understand their own bodies.”
• [11:31] Rob: “I was woken up in intensive care and told that my baby was dying … I thought … why didn’t they realize it would have been kinder to let me die too?”
• [13:10] Rob: “If you have a midwife focusing on a woman having a normal birthing experience at the expense of everything else, it isn’t safe. … Our daughter died and the only thing that could have stopped that is us being in hospital.”
• [33:35] Rob: “I’m convinced it is the reason that Abigail’s not here. … until we actually tackle that properly, we’re not going to improve maternity services.”
• [34:10] Rob: “We just keep getting these top level, you know, we’ll tinker here and here, but no one seems to have the kind of strength or the authority or the will to actually say there is a deep rooted problem … It’s so galling as a bereaved parent.”

---

Important Timestamps

• [02:27] – Katie and Rob’s account of their tragedy
• [03:55], [15:27] – Baroness Amos on why the issue persists; misogyny in care
• [05:56], [07:21] – Previous scandals and uniqueness of Amos Report
• [08:20] – Key recommendations and criticisms
• [09:59] – Detailed retelling of Katie and Rob’s ordeal
• [13:10] – The danger of prioritizing ‘natural birth’
• [17:55] – Controversy over report’s stance on ‘normal birth ideology’
• [23:12] – Families' reaction to the report
• [26:43] – The emotional toll of repeated reviews
• [28:00] – Systemic sexism and inertia described
• [31:43] – Rising maternal death rates despite medical progress
• [35:14] – Final thoughts from bereaved parents

---

Flow & Tone

The episode maintains a sober, direct, and empathetic tone, grounded by the lived experiences of bereaved parents. Journalists are precise, sometimes incredulous, about repeated failures, while parents transparently express their grief and anger. Baroness Amos is pragmatic, acknowledging both the damning evidence and the complexity of reform.

---

Conclusion/Takeaways

• The systemic failures in England’s maternity care are deeply rooted, with recurring patterns of dismissed concerns, cover-ups, and cultural factors (including misogyny and biases towards natural birth).
• The Amos Report summarizes, but to some extent repeats, long-known problems. Victims’ families are skeptical that even well-intentioned new structures—like a Maternity Commissioner—will spur concrete change instead of bureaucratic delay.
• The episode closes with bereaved parents’ continued demands for meaningful scrutiny and urgent action that truly values mothers and babies, as well as a call for listener experiences.

---

If you have not listened, this summary provides a comprehensive understanding of the crises in England’s maternity care systems, the recent national review, its critiques, and the perspectives of both expert journalists and affected families.

Transcript

[Weight Loss by Hers Advertiser]

If you've felt stuck trying to lose weight, you're not alone. Enter Weight Loss by Hers. It's designed to support you in reaching your goals, and hers now offers access to an affordable range of FDA approved GLP1 medications, including the Wegovy Pill and the Wegovy Pen. Even better, with a range of affordable GLP1 options, hers makes it simple to find an approach that fits your needs and your budget. If eligible, you'll get a treatment plan personalized to you and unlimited dosage changes as needed. It's weight loss designed to work with your life. Ready to reach your goals? Visit forhers.com eligible to get personalized affordable care that gets you that's F O r h e r-s.com eligible forhers.com eligible weight loss by hers is not available in all 50 states. WeGovy is the registered trademark of Novo Nordisc as to get started and learn more, including important safety information, WeGovy clinical study information and restrictions, visit fourhers.com

[Rob (Parent)]

this

[Manveen Rana (Host)]

episode of the Story is sponsored by PwC.

[PwC Advertiser]

Technology doesn't wait, and neither should you. Staying competitive means getting ahead, not just keeping up. PwC takes you further with tech. From optimizing the systems that put your data to work to scaling AI from proof of concept to competitive edge, PwC

[Manveen Rana (Host)]

helps you meet tomorrow's tech demands so you can compete at a speed that rewrites the rules.

[PwC Advertiser]

Discover [e-mail]

[Manveen Rana (Host)]

from the Times and the Sunday Times, this is the story. I'm Manveen Rana. Headline after headline and scandal after scandal, alarm bells have been ringing about the failing state of maternity care in England.

[Katie (Parent)]

It's been described as the worst maternity

[Poppy Koronka (Health Correspondent, The Times)]

scandal in the history of the nhs.

[Katie (Parent)]

Hundreds of mothers and babies died or were due to deep rooted, systemic and sustained failings at Nottingham University, NHS Trust,

[PwC Advertiser]

Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals. The names are sure to join the list of the most serious NHS scandals.

[Manveen Rana (Host)]

It's a subject we've tried to shine a light on before on this podcast, including the harrowing story of Katie and Rob's experience when they were expecting their first child back in 2021.

[Katie (Parent)]

I basically explained she was struggling for breath, you know, had gone clammy was pale, her blue lips couldn't speak, she couldn't get a word out, which is why I was, you know, the one talking to the midwife. They didn't really respond, as if they were listening to what I was saying. They didn't get the seriousness of it. And she ended the call basically saying, well, you could Come in. But there's no rush.

[Rob (Parent)]

I was woken up in intensive care and told that my baby was dying. And I can't really explain what that was like. I'd gone from the happiest I've ever been, thinking I was going into hospital to bring my daughter home to, like, the worst possible news.

[Manveen Rana (Host)]

With every tragedy, the urgency of demanding answers from the NHS has grown. But despite a series of critical reports into individual NHS trusts, until now, we've never been able to see just how devastating the picture is across the country. But today, with the publication of the long awaited Amos Report, that picture is clearer and it's damning.

[Baroness Amos]

I took it on because I couldn't believe we hadn't fixed it. Obviously, I was very aware of the reviews that have taken place and I couldn't believe that despite these investigations, despite those reviews, this was continuing to happen time and time and time again.

[Manveen Rana (Host)]

What does the full report show and what do parents like Katie and Rob make of it? What needs to change to protect parents and babies from a dysfunctional maternity system? The story today, the Amos Report. What's going wrong with England's maternity care?

[Interviewer/Host]

Here we are again. Would you both mind just starting by introducing yourselves?

[Eleanor Hayward (Health Editor, The Times)]

My name is Eleanor Hayward and I'm the health editor at the Times.

[Poppy Koronka (Health Correspondent, The Times)]

My name is Poppy Koronka and I am the health correspondent at the Times.

[Interviewer/Host]

And we're talking quite late on Monday afternoon. We've been waiting for this report to

[Eleanor Hayward (Health Editor, The Times)]

drop for a little while.

[Interviewer/Host]

What's been happening?

[Eleanor Hayward (Health Editor, The Times)]

I think there's been a bit of an issue with perceptions of how the communications of the report are being handled and the accountability to families and to the public as well. There was initially meant to be a press conference tomorrow with Baroness Amos where she'd obviously be able to answer a lot of questions in full view of the press, but that was actually cancelled relatively last. So I think there's some concerns that she's maybe not going to face as much scrutiny as families would have hoped,

[Interviewer/Host]

which is an interesting start to the report everybody's been waiting for. Just talk us through this, because we've had a number of reports on maternity already. Just remind us what those we're looking at and why this one is different.

[Eleanor Hayward (Health Editor, The Times)]

Yeah, you're right. We can barely move without new maternity reports coming out. So it's only six days ago that Donna Ockendon published a major report into Nottingham University Hospital, which is the largest inquiry in NHS history, and that found that more than 500 babies and mothers had died or suffered serious harm as a result of failings in care. And Nottingham was one in a long line of other maternity scandals. So in recent years we've also had Shrewsbury and Telford, East Kent and before that, Morecambe Bay. And these all followed a similar pattern where mothers and babies were failed by the maternity services in those trusts and that resulted in deaths of babies and mothers and lifelong trauma for others.

[Interviewer/Host]

And this report sort of is more of an umbrella of different trusts.

[Eleanor Hayward (Health Editor, The Times)]

Yeah, the previous inquiries tend to focus on one hospital in particular and really probe exactly what went wrong there. This one's more of a national overview. So like you said, an umbrella report. It looked specifically at 12 NHS trusts to inform this national picture. But the idea was that it's not just those 12 trusts, it's across the country as well. So Amos spoke to NHS national leaders as well as the staff at these individual trusts and families from across the country who'd been affected by poor maternity care.

[Interviewer/Host]

It has been done very quickly though, you know, given the scope, given that it's looking at the enormous national picture, it does feel like it's come out much sooner than we would have expected.

[Poppy Koronka (Health Correspondent, The Times)]

Yeah, well, I mean the other reviews, I think the Nottingham Review, what was that, three or four years?

[Eleanor Hayward (Health Editor, The Times)]

Yeah, four years.

[Poppy Koronka (Health Correspondent, The Times)]

It takes a really, really long time to understand what goes wrong. When Wes Treating announced this last year, it was intended to be a really short, sharp look into what's going wrong in maternity care so that we can change things quickly. But it's hard to grasp how you can get such a comprehensive view of so many trusts in such a short amount of time. They have looked through a huge amount of evidence. I think it was 10,000 pieces of evidence. 450 families, 38 hospital executives.

[Interviewer/Host]

Wow.

[Poppy Koronka (Health Correspondent, The Times)]

It's a lot of work for six months, probably seven months maybe now.

[Interviewer/Host]

So we now have this national snapshot of what maternity care looks like. What's the big headline?

[Eleanor Hayward (Health Editor, The Times)]

I think there's two aspects. Firstly, it sets out a bit where things have been going wrong. It also makes some quite clear recommendations that the plan is to implement across England. In terms of what's been going wrong, it doesn't really say much that we didn't already know in terms of cultural failings to listen to women, things like not giving women pain relief, not admitting them to hospital. And also this huge muddled mess of accountability where if something goes terribly wrong, there's no way to get answers, there's no way to get a quick investigation and there's a cover up culture. People are defensive in terms of the recommendations I think there's a couple of recommendations that should be implemented quickly. One of them is the creation of a new maternity commissioner. And the idea is that this is a statutory post, so somebody who will oversee the entire maternity system in England and Wales and be responsible for driving change, for implementing the recommendations, and that, therefore, hopefully should improve accountability across the system. There's also a few recommendations relating to clinical care, particularly into staffing on wards, into how women are treated when they first develop symptoms.

[Interviewer/Host]

We've looked at the issues with maternity care in this country for a while now on this podcast too, and you've both been on before. And, Poppy, I know you've been speaking to many of the parents who've seen it at the sharp end just remind us of Katie and Rob's story. They are a couple we've spoken to before and whose Katie, I think, shocked many of our listeners.

[Poppy Koronka (Health Correspondent, The Times)]

I've been speaking to Katie and Rob for about six or seven months now, as this review has been ongoing and as things change and progress. In Sussex, where they were treated. Katie gave birth in 2021. Her pregnancy was very normal. She was categorised as low risk and there wasn't really any need for concern right up until she was starting to go into labour. Katie called the hospital several times. She was worried about some bleeding, but they sort of told her to remain at home, to call them if she got worse. But things changed really rapidly.

[Rob (Parent)]

I felt like I was going to be sick. I couldn't catch my breath. And so at that point, Rob phoned the maternity assessment unit. This was the fourth time that we spoke to them.

[Katie (Parent)]

They didn't really respond, as if they were listening to what I was saying. They didn't get the seriousness of it. And she ended the call basically saying, well, you could come in, but there's no rush.

[Poppy Koronka (Health Correspondent, The Times)]

She became extremely unwell, so they got a taxi to the hospital and in the taxi on the way, Katie had a cardiac arrest. She fell unconscious and she ended up having a emergency C section in the hospital reception as they were trying to resuscitate her. They did deliver Abigail. Katie went into a coma for a few days and when she woke up, she woke up to be told that she was going to say goodbye to Abigail, her daughter.

[Rob (Parent)]

I was woken up in intensive care and told that my baby was dying and I can't really explain what that was like. I'd gone from the happiest I've ever been thinking I was going into hospital to bring my daughter home to, like, the worst possible news to the point where I sort of thought to myself, this has to be a nightmare. Like, this can't be real. And I thought, because the doctors explained how unwell I'd been, and then they told me that Abigail was dying and I thought, why didn't they realize it would have been kinder to let me die too? And I just had that thought playing over in my head for the. For weeks afterwards. And then they said, do you want to meet Abigail? And I said, yes. And so we had essentially a day together.

[Poppy Koronka (Health Correspondent, The Times)]

Very sadly, Abigail died a few days later. They've been through an immense amount of trauma with maternity care in the uk and they've been pushing for change at Sussex as well. They had an inquest and they found that Katie should have been asked to come in a lot sooner, but it was because essentially, medical professionals wanted things to happen, quote, unquote, naturally, so as not to break the oxytocin bubble, so to essentially help mother and baby bond after birth. I think it probably doesn't need to be said that there's no point in that happening if the baby dies.

[Rob (Parent)]

If you have a midwife focusing on a woman having a normal birthing experience at the expense of everything else, it isn't safe. It wasn't safe in our case. Our daughter died and the only thing that could have stopped that is us being in hospital.

[Interviewer/Host]

So just the priority on having a natural birthday meant that they ignored her cause when she said something wasn't right.

[Poppy Koronka (Health Correspondent, The Times)]

Yeah. And sort of prioritising that over safety has been a massive theme in maternity care over the last five years, decade, however long, it's definitely been emerging as a massive issue.

[Interviewer/Host]

And what did Sussex University Hospital Trust, what did they say about this case?

[Poppy Koronka (Health Correspondent, The Times)]

Sussex University Hospitals Trust did say that they had met with Abigail's family to offer heartfelt condolences and apologies for their loss. They said that they've remained firmly committed to listening and learning while they improve their care. Of course, we do have the upcoming Ockendon Review, which will give them more advice and pointers and examination into how to do that.

[Interviewer/Host]

We'll come back to Katie and Rob and we'll actually hear from them on their thoughts about this report. Eleanor, you've actually just finished interviewing Baroness Amos. This is a Labour grandee, former Labour minister in earlier governments. What was it like talking to her? What would you. What did she say about maternity care?

[Eleanor Hayward (Health Editor, The Times)]

I mean, I asked her, why did you take this on? Because it seems like a bit of a thankless task. I mean, so many people have looked at this issue and no one's, as we've heard, yet been able to fix it. And she said she was astonished that it hadn't been fixed. And even though this isn't her background, not particularly in health, she wanted to address it and see if she could make a difference.

[Baroness Amos]

I'm someone who has knowledge and experience of organizations, how they work. I was head of, you know, emergency Relief at the un, looking at how countries could support and help other countries and communities when disasters happened. So whilst I'm not steeped in health, I thought I had some broader experience that could be of value.

[Eleanor Hayward (Health Editor, The Times)]

A lot of the recommendations and themes of her report, no one's going to disagree with things like. One of the key recommendations is that women always need to be listened to.

[Baroness Amos]

There is an issue of misogyny. I think that is reflected in what we heard time and time and time again, which is women saying, you just won't have listened to it. I know my body. I had reduced fetal movement, I was bleeding, I knew something was wrong. I rang up, I was told to wait, I came in, I was sent home, or I was dismissed because I was told I was overanxious, because this was my first pregnancy. This sense that women don't understand their own bodies.

[Eleanor Hayward (Health Editor, The Times)]

She's also quite highly critical of the existing regulation system. So the Care Quality Commission, who are responsible for inspecting hospitals, she's saying it's not really that fit for purpose at the moment. And on the clinical side, and this is quite relevant to Katie and Rob's case as well.

[Interviewer/Host]

She.

[Eleanor Hayward (Health Editor, The Times)]

She says that the triage system for maternity units, so almost the first port of call for women to go to if, like Katie, they're worried something's not quite right.

[Baroness Amos]

I don't think that triage is seen as the emergency service for maternity in the natal, and I hope that will change because that is one of our recommendations, that trusts need to look at this urgently, be say, over the next few months, and need to think about how they make sure that they are treating it as an emergency service, so

[Eleanor Hayward (Health Editor, The Times)]

that it almost operates like an A and E unit or an urgent care centre for all pregnant women and that it needs to be properly staffed. Women shouldn't be left waiting. And again, that's something that I think everyone will welcome.

[Interviewer/Host]

I mean, those sound like sensible recommendations. Do we have a sense that the Government will implement them? Are they being taken seriously?

[Eleanor Hayward (Health Editor, The Times)]

Yeah. The Government have responded within a couple of hours of the report being published and essentially said they'll implement the recommendations in full. And that includes the new Maternity Commissioner, as well as an action plan to implement the recommendations, such as the new triage system. They've also promised an extra 41 million pounds, which will mainly go on improving facilities and making sure that infrastructure is up to scratch. And there aren't things like roofs collapsing in maternity wars, which is what is happening at the moment.

[Interviewer/Host]

Wow, that really is shocking. That feels like the baseline. You'd think, given that, as you say, most of her recommendations are reasonable, anyone would struggle to disagree with them. Why is this report already coming in for so much criticism?

[Eleanor Hayward (Health Editor, The Times)]

One key thing that's emerged again within a couple of hours of the report being published is controversy over the report's stance on normal birth. And a normal birth ideology has been implicated in lots and lots of previous inquests, previous maternity investigations. And it's basically this dogmatic ideology that says women should have a vaginal birth at all costs and kind of demonizes medical intervention and Caesareans.

[Interviewer/Host]

This is the factor we think affected Katie and Rob's case.

[Eleanor Hayward (Health Editor, The Times)]

Yeah, absolutely. And one of the things the report was asked to look at was how big an influence is normal birth ideology playing in maternity care in the nhs? So Amos concluded, and I quote, on the evidence available to us, we did not find that normal birth ideology was currently widespread in the maternity services we visited in England. And she said, you know, some families do feel it was part of their cases, but she didn't think it was one of the main themes. Now, this afternoon, before the report's been officially published, Dr. Bill Kirkup, who is a hugely respected figure in maternity care, has reserved from the government's National Maternity Review. Bill Kirkup had led two of the previous biggest maternity investigations into Morecambe Bay and East Kent. And the reason he resigned was due to basically disagreeing with the wording in the final report on normal birth ideology.

[Interviewer/Host]

Wow. So we've already seen a resignation over this report not being strong enough. Are there other criticisms?

[Eleanor Hayward (Health Editor, The Times)]

One thing that's come across from the Birth Trauma association, who are a campaign group, is that women's trauma basically isn't really covered in this report. So there's no mention of the injuries women can experience due to poor care. So things like really severe tears and forceps, which is using forceps to assist in the delivery of babies. And that's one of the biggest reasons for birth trauma and for severe injuries, they're not mentioned at all. And so they've described it as a missed opportunity and said it just doesn't really address the key failings that cause birth trauma.

[Manveen Rana (Host)]

Coming up. What do Katie and Rob, parents who face tragedy because of the maternity system, think of the final report that's in just a moment.

[Rob (Parent)]

Foreign.

[PwC Advertiser]

This episode of the Story is sponsored by PwC.

[Manveen Rana (Host)]

AI is everywhere. Return on investment?

[Interviewer/Host]

Not so much.

[Manveen Rana (Host)]

So how do you move past the hype and make AI actually deliver? PwC takes you further with tech, strengthening the data quality, processes and workflows that shape how well AI performs.

[PwC Advertiser]

PwC turns innovation into implementation so you can accelerate from experiment to scale.

[Manveen Rana (Host)]

Discover more at pwc.co.uk.

[Weight Loss by Hers Advertiser]

if you felt stuck trying to lose weight, you're not alone. Enter Weight Loss by Hers. It's designed to support you in reaching your goals, and hers now offers access to an affordable range of FDA approved GLP1 medications, including the Wegovy pill and the Wegovy. Even better, with a range of affordable GLP1 options, hers makes it simple to find an approach that fits your needs and your budget. If eligible, you'll get a treatment plan personalized to you and unlimited dosage changes as needed. It's weight loss designed to work with your life. Ready to reach your goals? Visit fourhers.com eligible to get personalized Affordable care that gets you that's F O r h e r-s.com eligible forhers.com eligible weight loss by hers is not available in all 50 states. WeGovy is the registered trademark of Novo Nordisk as to get started and learn more, including important safety information, WeGovy clinical study information and restrictions, visit fourhers.com today's markets move fast. Get the insights you need in 10 minutes with the Barclays Brief, a new podcast from Barclays Investment Bank. Through sharp dialogue and scenario based analysis, our leading experts analyze key market themes each week. So whether you're managing a portfolio or leading a business, the Barclays Brief podcast can help you make smarter decisions today. Stay Sharp, Stay Brief. Find Barclays Brief Wherever you get your

[Eleanor Hayward (Health Editor, The Times)]

podcasts,

[Interviewer/Host]

Poppy, you've spoken to a number of families who've been affected by this in the past. Families who've lost babies who've been through a very traumatic experience while giving birth. What's their general reaction to this report?

[Poppy Koronka (Health Correspondent, The Times)]

I would say it is one of frustration and I think ultimately disappointment in most of what she's found. There were some recommendations that they did like and did find might be helpful. Sort of standardized triage system Katie and Rob said would be really, really good.

[Katie (Parent)]

I will say there's one good change that is talked about in the report and that's the triage service there is going to be an NHS England guideline published, national guideline published soon, we're told, and that's welcomed, that that should help bring positive change to the first port of call that many women and families have when they're in labor and during their pregnancy.

[Poppy Koronka (Health Correspondent, The Times)]

That was one of the things in the interim report that she released that wasn't mentioned, that they were quite disappointed that wasn't there. So that is pretty good. One of their larger criticisms was that all of these recommendations are pretty high level. It's, you know, getting a new maternity commissioner to change things when that's not exactly the change, it's getting someone to do the change, if you see what I mean.

[Interviewer/Host]

It's introducing another level.

[Poppy Koronka (Health Correspondent, The Times)]

Yeah. And other things that they were saying were, you know, one of the recommendations was that hospitals can't mark their own homework anymore. So when a family has a complaint about their care, if they're not happy with how the investigation's been handled, they can then get an independent review from people outside of the hospital to come in and say, what's really happened. I think that sounds really good. Right. I think having people who have been through this are looking at it and saying, how is that going to work?

[Rob (Parent)]

I think it just comes back to this kind of cultural problem of, of course, families want accountability, and if this helps with that, then that is definitely a welcome step. But is it going to truly be independent and is it going to have enough weight behind it that it can enforce changes on trusts?

[Poppy Koronka (Health Correspondent, The Times)]

You know, it's not granular enough. I think there wasn't enough detail in there for them to feel like things would actually change this time.

[Interviewer/Host]

And when you spoke to Baroness Amos, did she accept that there was. There were things this report hadn't really covered, things that were missing?

[Eleanor Hayward (Health Editor, The Times)]

Yeah, she did. She accepts that some families don't think her report was ever going to be good enough because it's not a public inquiry, which is what they want. And she also accepts that her report wasn't trying to achieve justice for previous wrongdoings, it wasn't trying to get to the root cause of the failings in specific cases. But she said if it can stop future cases happening, if it can stop other families going through trauma and loss, then that's the aim of her report. It's not redressing past failures, given that

[Interviewer/Host]

they feel this has been a missed opportunity. It's taken the sort of the big, higher level overview, but it hasn't gone into the grassroots problems, the things that are actually happening in hospitals. I mean, are there more Maternity reports to come that will shed light on more of that.

[Poppy Koronka (Health Correspondent, The Times)]

I think I would be very silly to sit here and say that we're not going to have more reports into this. Sussex University Hospital's trust and Leeds will be getting their own Ockington reviews. I think one of the things, I think it's important to say is that a lot of the families find these reviews really traumatic.

[Rob (Parent)]

Rob and I were at the Nottingham Review on Wednesday and Donna did an amazing speech and she spoke about maternity across the country. And we are obviously part of our own Ockendon Review now, and we will have that moment in three years time. And I'm not convinced that she's not going to be just saying exactly the same thing. And that's going to break me, I think if we're still in this position in three years time and nothing has

[Poppy Koronka (Health Correspondent, The Times)]

changed, we have the reports, we know what is happening on the ground, we know what's going wrong. It's just pretty traumatic for them to have to read through another report and think, is anything actually going to happen this time?

[Interviewer/Host]

And presumably there's. There's real confidence in these Ockendon reports that are coming because they will be conducted by somebody who, who has a very close experience of childbirth. She. She was a midwife and she's now investigating what happened in these trusts. And yet, as we've said already, you know, you've both been on this podcast before talking about this, talking about some of the previous reviews. We've had so many of them. Why haven't things changed already?

[Eleanor Hayward (Health Editor, The Times)]

No one can say they didn't know what was going wrong. They've been told so many times for so long, but no one's listened. And the issue there, I think, is like, cultural and systemic and links into sexism and racism. And we won't take this seriously because it's just women giving birth. It's just women giving birth and it's a natural process and we don't need to intervene too much. I spoke to Baroness Amos a bit about this, where, you know, the NHS so many times has prioritized things like cancer care, cardiac surgery, and you get state of the art and any failure that leads to death there would be seen as a never event that must be acted on quickly, like an airplane crash would be. And then with maternity, you get hundreds of women every year losing babies, suffering severe harm, and it's just kind of waved away or put in a too difficult box. I think it almost doesn't matter which report is the one to make a difference. Whether it's the AMOS one or one of the Ockendon ones. But we just need someone to actually act on the findings for once, because there's been 750 recommendations relating to maternity care issued on a national level in the past decades. Barely any of them have led to any change.

[Interviewer/Host]

That's extraordinary. So this is now another eight recommendations added onto 750, and these tragedies are still occurring. Is part of the problem that you get these big inquiries, these big reports, you get the recommendations and then you have the dysfunction of government in implementing them?

[Eleanor Hayward (Health Editor, The Times)]

Yeah, there's the dysfunction of government in implementing them. We've seen, I think about. I think I'm on about my ninth Health Secretary in about a decade. And they all say that maternity will be a priority, and then, lo and behold, it never really is. There's another element which comes across in this report as well, which is that the NHS Trusts are sort of drowning under hundreds of different recommendations, so they don't know how to make sense of them either. So if you've got 750 recommendations to look at, you can't implement them all at once. So which ones are you meant to take seriously? And I think one thing AMOS is trying to do, and hopefully will work or have some success, is streamline those recommendations. So it's a single set of standards and every trust has to follow them. And, you know, that means getting rid of some of the previous recommendations, but hopefully means some of them are acted upon.

[Interviewer/Host]

I suppose it doesn't help, as you said, you know, the rapid change in Health secretaries. This review was commissioned by Wes Streeting. We're already onto a Health Secretary after him and we might have another before the year's out.

[Eleanor Hayward (Health Editor, The Times)]

Yeah, I think we'll have another one within the next fortnight, to be honest.

[Interviewer/Host]

Which makes it very hard for recommendations to actually be implemented.

[Rob (Parent)]

Yeah.

[Eleanor Hayward (Health Editor, The Times)]

And there's nothing to say that whoever Andy Burnham appoints as Health Secretary isn't going to then commission a public inquiry and say, oh, forget about Amos, I'm going to do a public inquiry and do it differently. And that uncertainty definitely is harmful because it's opportunity cost and, you know, we can't afford more delays and there is no time to lose.

[Interviewer/Host]

Assuming it is Andy Burnham. So much to wait and see as things stand. If these recommendations are implemented, do you think this could be the moment that there is real change for maternity services in this country?

[Eleanor Hayward (Health Editor, The Times)]

I just don't know. I mean, I hope so. I think there's got to be at some point, there's Got to be a turning point. Maybe it will be the Ockendon report last week. Maybe it'll be this, I think, but I say this every time, like, oh, it can't possibly get any worse. This is rock bottom. And then it keeps getting worse. The death rate for women in childbirth has increased by 50% in the past

[Interviewer/Host]

decade, which is extraordinary at a time when we're making so much progress in so many elements of science and technology. It seems mad that we're going backwards when it comes to maternity.

[Baroness Amos]

Yeah.

[Eleanor Hayward (Health Editor, The Times)]

Things like cancer, survival rates are improving massively and then more women are bleeding to death while giving birth.

[Poppy Koronka (Health Correspondent, The Times)]

I will say, it does feel like perhaps we are getting to a point where we, as in the population at large at least, is taking the problem seriously and really cares about it. You know, we've been talking about it a lot and we've been writing about it a lot, and there's a lot of appetite for it. A lot of families are speaking up now about their care, which wasn't always the case. So I do think perhaps we are getting to a point where we're hopefully ready to grapple with it. You would think, after this many reviews. So, yeah, I think at least we understand the problem, which is more than I think we could say a decade ago.

[Interviewer/Host]

Yeah. And, Poppy, we've been talking a lot about Katie and Rob through this podcast and the tragedy that they've experienced. It feels appropriate to leave the them with the last word, really. I mean, what do they make of this review? Are they more hopeful?

[Poppy Koronka (Health Correspondent, The Times)]

No, I wouldn't say so.

[Rob (Parent)]

As far as I'm concerned, it's been a bit of a witness exercise. I'm not convinced that any of the recommendations are going to deal with what we know to be deep rooted problems in the system that no one has properly examined.

[Poppy Koronka (Health Correspondent, The Times)]

I think they were extremely disappointed in the language about normal birth ideology. This idea that there should not be too much medical intervention in birth and we should, you know, let women sort of get on with it.

[Rob (Parent)]

I'm convinced it is the reason that Abigail's not here. Midwives following normal birth ideology as opposed to treating a patient as an individual. And I honestly believe until we actually tackle that properly, we're not going to improve maternity services. So I think that's a really massive oversight in this report.

[Poppy Koronka (Health Correspondent, The Times)]

I think it's been a very upsetting read for them. I think it's been very frustrating and I think they really needed clarity on explicitly what would happen next, not just the maternity commissioner, but in more granular detail, which a lot of the report didn't give.

[Rob (Parent)]

We just keep getting these top level, you know, we'll tinker here and here, but no one seems to have the kind of strength or the authority or the will to actually say there is a deep rooted problem that we have not got to grips with and it's been decades since we've known there's a problem with our maternity services. We just keep doing the same thing over and over again until we have an inquiry that will compel evidence from people and properly scrutinize trust, leadership, education, regulatory bodies, the whole thing. We're just not ever going to fix it. And it's so galling as a bereaved parent.

[Manveen Rana (Host)]

That was Eleanor Hayward, health editor at the Times, and Poppy Caronka, health correspondent. The producers today were Olivia Case and Michaela Arneson. The executive producer was Edward Drummond and sound design and theme composition were by Marlisetto. If you've had any experiences with maternity care that you'd like to get in touch with us about, do drop us a line to the [e-mail] thanks for listening.

[Interviewer/Host]

We'll be back tomorrow.

[Eleanor Hayward (Health Editor, The Times)]

Quarry.

[Rob (Parent)]

Foreign.

[Manveen Rana (Host)]

This episode of the Story is sponsored by PwC.

[PwC Advertiser]

What does an AI ready workforce actually look like? Breakthrough performance comes from combining human intelligence with machine capability. PwC brings it all together and takes you further with tech, empowering you to move faster, solve more complex challenges and unlock new value.

[Manveen Rana (Host)]

PwC combines talent strength with tech strategy so you can unite human potential with AI power.

[PwC Advertiser]

Discover [e-mail]

[SOFI Advertiser]

Today we'll attempt a feat once thought impossible, overcoming high interest credit card debt. It requires merely one thing a SOFI personal loan. With it you could save big on interest charges by consolidating into one low fixed rate monthly payment. Defy high interest debt with a SOFA personal loan. Visit sofa.com stunt to learn more. Loans originated by Sofa Bank NA member FDIC terms and conditions apply. NMLS 696891.