The final report from the National Maternity and Neonatal Investigation led by Baroness Amos calls for systemic, urgent change to maternity services.
We welcome this call to action, which echoes last week’s Ockenden report in its urgency, and stand in solidarity with the women and birthing people whose experiences serve as the evidence of this broken system and with the healthcare professionals who have spent decades raising the alarm.
Our team is carefully analysing the findings and recommendations from both the National Investigation and the Nottingham review. We will need time to digest and reflect on the details of what this means for women and birthing people, the healthcare professionals caring for them, and decision makers in positions of power and influence.
What we can say at this stage is that we entirely agree with Baroness Amos’s conclusions that (i) systemic racism and other forms of discrimination and inequity, (ii) failure to listen to women and birthing people, and (iii) the need for positive workforce cultures to replace toxic ones, are all critical safety issues which need to start to be tackled immediately, with real progress possible and necessary in the near term. It’s absolutely essential all solutions force a move away from entrenched medical misogyny, and involve the decolonisation of system architecture, policies and frameworks, education and training, as well as looking at interpersonal interactions.
However, we are disappointed that there is a failure in the report to analyse these concerns as fundamental human rights violations, not just clinical failings.
True safety is impossible without respect for human rights, and a core part of all solutions must be to embed a human rights framework at every level of the maternity system in order for women and birthing people’s rights to safety, dignity, autonomy, choice and equity to be consistently prioritised and protected.
Birthrights supports the Amos report’s call for a comprehensive national action plan, and we plan to use our role on the Health Equity sub-group of the Maternal and Neonatal Taskforce to insist that, this time, after tens of reports and hundreds of recommendations over the last decade, there must now be meaningful change.
We absolutely understand families’ concerns that action taken now must not be tokenistic or delayed. We call upon the government, and all parties across the political spectrum, to ensure that, regardless of parliament’s summer recess and the anticipated changes in leadership, this fragile progress is not lost. Political and public will must be harnessed and translated into proper funding and prioritisation of maternity services, with human rights and equity driving long overdue systemic change.
Birthrights is the leading authority on the human rights of women and birthing people during pregnancy and birth in the UK. We believe that all women and birthing people should be able to exercise their right to make informed decisions about their bodies and care, and to do so free from discrimination, coercion and violence. We champion rights by supporting women and birthing people, training healthcare professionals, holding systems and institutions to account, and making visible diverse experiences of maternity care.
Birthrights was co-founded by human rights barrister, Elizabeth Prochaska and doula and author Rebecca Schiller more than 10 years ago because no other organisation in the UK was looking at the breadth of issues in maternity care through a human rights lens. We continue to offer rights-based information on everything from maternal request caesarean to unassisted birth. Alongside the information we provide to women and birthing people and their supporters, we also engage directly with Trusts and hospitals, wherever possible as a critical friend, but we are never afraid to take legal action, and campaign for change.