Birth trauma: Top midwife slams ‘wholly insufficient’ progress two years after key report
A maternity expert behind a key 2022 report has told Sky News she is “angry” over government inaction after a landmark inquiry found good care “is the exception rather than the rule”.
Donna Ockendon, whose report in March 2022 listed 15 areas for “immediate and essential action”, said families have been “let down” by failure to improve services across England.
Then-health secretary Sajid Javid pledged to “make the changes that are needed” following that report.
But this week, an inquiry into birth trauma found there was “shockingly poor quality” in maternity services, resulting in a system where “poor care is all too frequently tolerated as normal”.
“If we look at the issue that underpins the delivery of all safe maternity care – which is funding, workforce and training – we’ve made really disappointing progress on that,” she said.
“Warm words are no longer enough, action needs to happen and it needed to happen a long time ago.”
Ms Ockendon, who is currently investigating failures at Nottingham University Hospital NHS Trust, said progress on maternity care has been “wholly insufficient” in the 26 months since her report.
She said a minimum of £200m to £350m was needed immediately at the time her report was published, but only £180m has been spent in total so far.
The figure needed today – after inflation “ravaged” the economy – could be as much £1bn, she said.
This funding shortage compounds the strain on staff, she said, citing a Royal College of Midwives claim that staff are working 100,000 hours in unpaid overtime each week.
That has now risen to 118,000 hours, according to her understanding.
“We are significantly less than halfway where we should be in terms of finance,” she said.
“Without finance, we can’t grow our workforce.”
‘Some more equal than others’
While many will still be cared for properly, she said, there is a “postcode lottery” when it comes to quality, with ethnic minorities particularly affected.
“Some women are more equal than others, it would seem,” she said.
There are “persistent inequalities” in outcomes for women living in depravation, she added, and there are “so many inequalities that are persisting”.
“The government promised swift action,” she said, adding she is due to meet health minister Victoria Atkins in around six weeks.
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‘Much more work to do’ on maternity care
Read more:
Minister sorry as birth trauma report finds ‘shockingly poor quality’
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Each year, around 30,000 women will suffer a negative experience before, during or after delivery, according to this week’s inquiry results.
Led by Tory MP Theo Clarke and Labour MP Rosie Duffield, the Birth Trauma Inquiry considered evidence given by more than 1,300 women and called for a national plan to improve maternity care.
“Behind all of these numbers are accounts of lives that have been changed forever,” Ms Ockendon said.
“I do hear, on a daily basis, accounts of lives that have been torn apart, changed, and I can’t put them back together again.”
Health Secretary Victoria Atkins said: “I am determined to improve the quality and consistency of care for women throughout pregnancy, birth and the critical months that follow, and I fully support work to develop a comprehensive national strategy to improve our maternity services.
“We are now investing £186m a year more than in 2021 to improve maternity and neonatal care, and we announced an extra £35m at the Spring Budget to boost maternity safety, with more midwives and better training.”
The crash involving a cargo ship and oil tanker off the East Yorkshire coast is bad news for the sea, fish and air in the area. What we don’t know yet is quite how bad it will be.
That depends on a few things – but the speed of the collision, clouds of filthy black smoke from the fires and the leaked fuel are certainly worrying.
Firstly, it matters what was on board those two massive vessels.
Follow live: Jet fuel spilling into sea after tanker collision
Analytics firm Vortexa estimates the 183m-long tanker was carrying about 130,000 barrels of jet fuel (kerosene), which is now leaking into the sea.
Jet fuel is not as sticky or viscous as heavier types of oil, thankfully, so it’s less likely to clog the feathers and fur of birds and seals. It can also be broken down by natural bacteria.
But it can still poison fish and kill animals and plants on the shoreline if it makes its way into the soil there.
The Marine Conservation Society has pointed out the site in the Humber estuary is close to some protected areas and is important for seabirds and harbour porpoises.
And both ships will have been powered by a dirtier, heavier kind of oil – likely marine gas oil or heavy fuel oil, though we don’t know the details yet.
Heavy fuel oil is nasty stuff.
Pic: Bartek Smialek/PA
Cheap, thick and tar-like, it can smother animals and is very dangerous if they consume it, and is extremely difficult to clean up. Let’s hope this isn’t creeping around the North Sea already.
We don’t know how much of either the jet fuel or the oil powering the ships has leaked, or how much will be burned off in the violent fires – which themselves are ploughing black smoke and filthy air pollution into the surrounding atmosphere.
And we don’t know for sure what was on the Solong cargo ship and if, or what, will go into the sea.
Cargo ship ‘had sodium cyanide on board’
It was carrying 15 containers of sodium cyanide among other cargo, according to a report from maritime data provider Lloyd’s List Intelligence.
The container vessel was also transporting an unknown quantity of alcohol, said the casualty report – an assessment of incidents at sea – citing a message from the local coastguard.
Plastic takes hundreds of years to break down, and potentially can choke or trap animals.
Many of us have seen that uncomfortable viral video of a turtle having a straw yanked out of its nose. Previous accidents on cargo ships have seen plastic Lego pieces wash up in Cornwall 25 years later.
Read more:
How UK North Sea platforms dump gas
Secondly, the impact depends on the sea and weather conditions around it.
Things like the wind and currents affect how an oil spill spreads in the sea. Scientists can draw up computer models to simulate how the oil could behave.
Thirdly, it matters how quickly this is all tackled and then cleaned up, if necessary, and if it can be.
Usually the slower the response, the worse the impact.
The coastguard has said the incident “remains ongoing” and it has started assessing the “likely counter pollution response” that will be required.
Such a response might need the help of numerous public bodies: the government environment department, the transport department, the Environment Agency and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency.
So for now the best we can hope for – aside from the welfare of the people involved – is that not all the oil is spilled or burnt, that conditions are calm and that rescuers and those cleaning up can work swiftly.
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