Our response to the National Maternity and Neonatal Investigation Report | Latest News

Baroness Amos’ National Maternity and Neonatal Report is difficult to read because it sets out cases of poor care and avoidable harm experienced by women, birthing people and families across England. As the lead for maternity services in Plymouth, I want to acknowledge the pain, and sometimes loss, experienced by the families who gave evidence to this investigation.

The themes identified by Baroness Amos today echo those identified in previous reports and include poor workplace cultures and conditions, discrimination in practice, a lack of joined-up care and, perhaps most tellingly, a failure to listen to women, birthing people and families and to be open and honest with them when things go wrong.

Here in Plymouth, we are not one of the 12 Trusts investigated in this report. However, we fully recognise there is learning for every maternity service in Baroness’ Amos report as well as in the report published last week by Donna Ockenden into services in Nottingham.

I want the communities we serve to know 2 things:

1.    We want to provide the best care we can and we will fully embrace the recommendations from both reports.

2.    Most importantly, I want any woman, birthing person or family member who is either currently using our maternity and neonatal service or has used our services in the past and has a concern, or a question to talk to us. We want to hear from you. If you are currently being cared for by a member of our midwifery team and have a question or concern, you can talk to your midwife. If you have used our maternity service in the past and have a query, you can reach out to helenharling@nhs.net (Head of Midwifery)

As a team of midwives, maternity care staff and other specialist staff, we have worked hard to improve our maternity and neonatal services in recent years. This has included:

• Working hand in hand with our Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership. These families come into our service regularly and we listen to their feedback and make changes in response. Members or the Partnership, who are independent of the hospital, are involved in recruitment, education, reviewing incidents and assessing the wards and environments we provide care in. You can read about their most recent visit and recommendations in their 15 Steps report. 

• Involving women, birthing people and families - those receiving maternity care at University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust reported improvements in key areas of the maternity service, according to the local CQC Maternity Survey published in December. For example, those who responded reported feeling well-supported during labour, with few being sent home when worried about themselves or their baby. Partners or support people were able to be involved in labour and birth as much as they wished, indicating strong family-centred care and families told us that staff communicated clearly and in an understandable way helping to support informed decision-making. 

• We have invested in our maternity care team - recently we have increased our team by 12 midwives and have zero vacancies.

• We use best-practice quality improvement methodology to make changes to make care better for women, birthing people and families.

• We are proud to offer our families the opportunity to be involved in groundbreaking research - The Generation Study.

• Most importantly, sometimes unexpected things happen during pregnancy, birth and in the early stages of a baby’s life and sometimes we don’t get care right for women, birthing people and families. When either of these things happen, it’s critical that our teams are utterly open and transparent with families. We are working really hard on developing a culture where we involve women, birthing people and families in every decision and where we actively seek out opinions and feedback.

Lara Grigg, Senior Lead for the Devon Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership, said: “Devon’s Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership (MNVP) has worked closely with Derriford Hospital for some time. Over the past year, this partnership has grown significantly, supported by additional funding from Devon’s Integrated Care Board. The MNVP now works with teams across the hospital to help ensure that the voices and experiences of women, birthing people and families are heard and reflected in decisions about maternity and neonatal services.”

"There is currently a strong national focus on improving safety in maternity and neonatal care. Recent reports have made one message clear: listening to women, birthing people and their families is essential to providing services that are safe, responsive and compassionate.”

“Devon’s MNVP is proud of the strong relationships that have been built with Derriford Hospital, including with senior leaders and clinical teams. We are encouraged by the commitment shown by hospital staff to working collaboratively with us and making meaningful improvements for local people.”

We know we have more to do and we will do this by working with those we service - the women, birthing people and families in our local communities.

David Connor
Director of Midwifery