Overview
- Baroness Valerie Amos’s independent national investigation concluded England’s maternity and neonatal system is not set up to deliver safe, high-quality care, citing repeated clinical failings and a culture that dismisses women.
- The report says racism and discrimination are embedded in services and should be treated as patient-safety issues, with better data collection and escalation of persistent inequalities to trust boards.
- Amos recommended urgent reforms including a statutory Maternity and Neonatal Commissioner, an overhaul of maternity triage to stop phone-based dismissals, and minimum national safety standards, and the government has accepted the commissioner recommendation and pledged funding.
- Bereaved families and campaign groups condemned the review as insufficiently independent and renewed calls for a statutory public inquiry, while a senior adviser resigned in dispute over how the report treated risks linked to ‘normal birth’ approaches.
- Local trusts named in the review have issued apologies and set out improvement plans and national probes such as the Nottingham review and ongoing regulatory and police inquiries continue to drive scrutiny and public scepticism about implementation.