England to get powerful maternity commissioner after ‘shocking’ failings

A powerful maternity commissioner will be appointed to push through an urgent transformation of childbirth care in England after a major review concluded that it had multiple failings. Ministers have bowed to growing pressure by agreeing to recruit the UK’s first commissioner for maternity and neonatal care. Whoever takes on the role will pursue hospitals over persistent failures in care, ensure wide-ranging improvements are made and try to restore the faith of families in a maternity system in England that has been rocked by a series of scandals. James Murray, the health secretary, announced the move in response to Valerie Amos’s government-commissioned inquiry of maternity care, which concluded it was a system characterised by poor care and a failure to listen to women, and was plagued by racism and discrimination. “The maternity and neonatal system in England is no longer fit to consistently deliver high-quality, compassionate care to every woman and family, and requires urgent reform to put safety at its centre, embed a focus on listening to women and ensure anti-racist practice at every level,” she found. Lady Amos’s report is the second in less than a week to advise ministers to instigate a dramatic overhaul to reduce the risk of mothers and babies suffering harm or dying because of errors and receiving inadequate care from the NHS. …