Baroness Amos has delivered her damning verdict on why too many mothers and babies are dying in NHS care – and a familiar theme is emerging.
Her national review of NHS maternity care highlights what many local reviews have before – mothers were not listened to when they said something felt very wrong. Pregnant women calling hospitals in labour to report issues such as reduced foetal movement were often dismissed by midwives until it was too late.
One key failing remains a devastating legacy of a decade of Tory austerity policies – chronic short staffing. Short-staffed wards were reluctant to admit women in the earlier stages of labour.
When Labour came to power in 2024, it inherited an NHS with some of the fewest staff and hospital bed numbers in relation to population size of any health system in Europe. Staffing pressures contribute to other key failings in the Amos report such as toxic work cultures and bullying.
But it now falls upon Labour to act following a string of local inquiries in the last decade exposing the same failings.
View 2 ImagesAndy Burnham and Baroness Amos
Last week I reported on the latest inquiry by top midwife Donna Ockenden into failings in Nottinghamshire which found 520 mothers and babies suffered potentially avoidable harm or death due to poor care. Four years ago I attended a similar inquiry by Ms Ockenden, which uncovered many of the same failings in Shropshire. Dr Bill Kirkup also led two earlier reviews of maternity failings in East Kent in 2022 and Morecambe Bay in 2015.
These investigations generated nearly 750 national recommendations, but the same failings continue to plague the NHS. Maternal deaths are at a 20-year high.
This crisis prompted the Labour government to commission Baroness Amos’s National Maternity and Neonatal Investigation in 2025 to synthesise prior guidance and drive system-wide action.
Britain went through a period of political volatility following the fag end Conservative rule, and this has continued since Labour’s poll ratings collapsed under Keir Starmer. There have been six Secretaries of State for Health and Social Care since 2020.
This crucial report now falls into the inbox of James Murray, who took over as health secretary after his predecessor Wes Streeting resigned last month. However Mr Murray may no longer be in post in a few weeks.
Andy Burnham is likely to appoint his own man or woman to the post after taking over as Prime Minister – something which now appears a formality. James Murray had committed to publishing an action plan based on the Amos report by December.
Article continues below
Mr Burnham must ensure that anyone he appoints to replace him does the same. Baroness Amos states pointedly in her foreword: “Delivering change at the scale and pace demanded requires political will.”
Another change at the top must not prevent vital reform of NHS maternity care from taking place. If maternity reform is allowed to be kicked into the long grass it will dishonour the memory of the hundreds of women and babies whose lives have been lost or forever changed by avoidable NHS harm.