'What more does it take?' Maternity campaigner says damning national report must spark inquiry
County campaigners have renewed their call for a national inquiry into maternity services after inspectors identified major failings across the country.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC), which is tasked with ensuring health services are safe, has warned action is needed "to prevent harm in maternity services becoming ‘normalised'".
It said that "sadly" failings are not "isolated to just a handful of individual trusts".
The CQC has been carrying out a programme of inspections at maternity units across the country since 2021.
It says that of 131 looked at in the most recent raft of reviews, nearly 50 per cent either 'require improvement' or were found to be 'inadequate'.
Shockingly only 35 per cent were rated good for ‘safety’, with 47 per cent requiring improvement, and 18 per cent inadequate.
The findings have been met with frustration by one of the Shropshire parents who campaigned to force the Ockenden Inquiry into maternity services at Shrewsbury & Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SaTH).
That inquiry uncovered major failings over a number of years, in what was the country's biggest ever maternity scandal.
Rhiannon Davies, whose daughter Kate died from failings in the care provided by SaTH, has been pushing for a national inquiry into maternity services, along with her husband, Richard Stanton, and Kayleigh and Colin Griffiths – whose daughter, Pippa, also died after failings in SaTH's care.
