Health minister apologises as birth trauma report finds ‘shockingly poor quality’ maternity care

Published

2 years ago

May 13, 2024

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A health minister has apologised after a new report concluded that poor care in maternity services is “frequently tolerated as normal”.

The parliamentary inquiry found there was “shockingly poor quality” in maternity services, which resulted in care that lacked compassion and a system where “poor care is all too frequently tolerated as normal”.

Led by Conservative MP Theo Clarke and Labour MP Rosie Duffield, the Birth Trauma Inquiry considered evidence given by more than 1,300 women and has called for a national plan to improve maternity care.

It found that poor quality postnatal care was an “almost-universal theme”.

“Women shared stories of being left in blood-stained sheets or of ringing the bell for help but no one coming,” the report said.

It has made 12 recommendations, including that the government implement a maternity commissioner who would report directly to the prime minister.

A long-lasting problem

Health minister Maria Caulfield told Sky News maternity services had not been where they should be and apologised to mothers who had been affected.

“I recognise that maternity services have not been where we want them to be, but there is lots of work happening in this space,” Ms Caulfield said.

“This has been a problem for a long time, and it is why maternity is a priority area in the women’s health strategy.”

She said the inquiry aims to get expectant mothers better care during their pregnancy, rather than wait until they are just about to give birth.

Some £1.1bn – more than a third of the NHS’ total maternity and neonatal budget – was spent on cash payments relating to clinical negligence in 2022/23, a Department of Health and Social Care report showed.

Recommendations put forward by the Birth Trauma Inquiry include retraining and recruiting more midwives, offering a separate six-week check post-delivery with a GP for all mothers, provide support for fathers or nominated birth partners and better educate women on birth choices.

It also recommends extending the time limit for medical negligence litigation relating to childbirth from three years
to five years.

Recommendations made by the Birth Trauma Inquiry

The Birth Trauma Inquiry aims to look at the realities of giving birth and how the UK can practically improve maternity services.

One of the key conclusions of the report is to implement a National Maternity Improvement Strategy, led by a maternity commissioner, who will report directly to the prime minister.

This improvement strategy will outline the following 12 recommendations with the aim of introducing a base standard in maternity services across the UK:

1. Recruit, train and retain more midwives, obstetricians and anaesthetists and provide mandatory training on trauma-informed care.

2. Provide universal access to specialist maternal mental health services across the UK to end
the “postcode lottery”.

3. Offer a separate six-week check post-delivery with a GP for all mothers, which includes questions about the mother’s physical and mental health.

4. Roll out and implement the OASI (obstetric and anal sphincter injury) care bundle to all hospital trusts to reduce risk of injuries in childbirth.

5. Oversee the national rollout of standardised post-birth services to give all mothers a safe space to speak about their experiences in childbirth.

6. Ensure better education for women on birth choices. All NHS trusts should offer antenatal
classes.

7. Respect mothers’ choices about giving birth and access to pain relief and keep mothers
together with their baby as much as possible.

8. Provide support for fathers and ensure nominated birth partner is continuously informed
and updated during labour and post-delivery.

9. Provide better continuity of care and digitise mother’s health records to improve
communication between primary and secondary health care pathways.

10. Extend the time limit for medical negligence litigation relating to childbirth from three years
to five years.

11. Commit to tackling inequalities in maternity care among ethnic minorities, particularly black
and Asian women.

12. Research to be commissioned on the economic impact of birth trauma and injuries, including factors such as women delaying returning to work.

Health Secretary Victoria Atkins said she was “determined to improve the quality and consistency of care for women throughout pregnancy, birth and the critical months that follow”.

Wes Streeting, shadow health secretary, called the report “groundbreaking” and said the Labour Party would work in the same bipartisan spirit to deliver results.

‘A lot more work to be done’

After her own experience of a traumatic birth, Sandra Igwe set up The Motherhood Group and has spent the past eight years campaigning. When she gave birth earlier this year for the third time, she expected the outcome would be different.

“Sadly, the third time around, again, my concerns were dismissed and I was made to wait several days to give birth after being induced, and that added to my anxiety,” she told Sky News correspondent Shamaan Freeman-Powell.

“It has shown me there is a lot more work to be done.”

She is now working with Councillor Evelyn Akoto, cabinet member for health and wellbeing at Southwark Council, to get the experiences of women from diverse backgrounds in a maternity commission.

Cllr Akoto, who also had her own experience of being dismissed and ignored during labour, said the statistics black and ethnic minority women face are “horrifying”.

“I see myself and other black women as walking statistics,” she said. “I see our lives in danger all the time.”

The councillor said that in order for the quality of care to be improved across maternity services, inequalities need to be addressed.

“If we get it right for those who are being negatively impacted, we get it right for everyone,” she added. “So it’s important we all come together and resolve this.”

Politics

Nasdaq crypto chief pledges to ‘move as fast as we can’ on tokenized stocks

Published

6 hours ago

November 30, 2025

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Nasdaq crypto chief pledges to ‘move as fast as we can’ on tokenized stocks

The US Nasdaq stock exchange is making SEC approval of its proposal to offer tokenized versions of stocks listed on the exchange a top priority, according to the exchange’s crypto chief.

“We’ll just move as fast as we can,” Nasdaq’s head of digital assets strategy, Matt Savarese, said during an interview with CNBC on Thursday, when asked whether the SEC could approve the proposal this year.

“I think what we have to really evaluate where the public comments come back in and then answer and respond to the SEC questions as they come through,” Savarese said. “We hope to kind of work with them as quickly as possible,” Savarese said.

Savarese says Nasdaq isn’t “upending the system”

The proposal, submitted by Nasdaq on Sept. 8, is requesting to allow investors to buy and sell stock tokens — digital representations of shares in publicly traded companies — on the exchange.

Savarese emphasized that Nasdaq is not trying to overhaul the way stocks are invested in when asked whether he expects other major exchanges to follow suit.

Nasdaq, SEC, United States — *Nasdaq’s head of digital assets, Matt Savarese, spoke to CNBC on Thursday. Source:* *CNBC*

“We’re not looking at upending the system; we want everyone to come along for that ride and bring tokenization more into the mainstream,” he said.

“We want to do it in that responsible investor-led way first, under the SEC rules themselves,” he added.

It was only in October that Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev said that tokenization will “eventually eat the whole financial system.”

The crypto industry is divided on tokenized equities

Savarese emphasized that Nasdaq is aiming to be an innovator in the ecosystem, noting that the exchange was the first to transition markets from paper-based trading to electronic systems.

Tokenizing stocks has been one of the most significant talking points in the crypto industry this year.

On Sept. 3, Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz said the company became the first Nasdaq-listed company to tokenize its equity on a major blockchain following its launch on the Solana network.

The conversation around tokenized equities has also drawn skepticism from the crypto industry.

On Oct. 1, Rob Hadick, general partner at crypto venture firm Dragonfly, told Cointelegraph that tokenized equities will be a significant benefit to traditional markets, but may not be a boon to the crypto industry as others have predicted.

Hadick said that if tokenized stocks use layer-2 networks, it creates “leakage” as value and may not flow back to Ethereum or the broader crypto ecosystem as much as hoped.

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