Grieving mum wants maternity review to go further

A grieving mum has said there are "important parts missing" from the initial findings of a national maternity care review.

Alice Topping's daughter died while in labour at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford in 2023, and an independent report later found it was preventable.

Baroness Valerie Amos, who is leading a review into NHS maternity care in England, said she was "shocked" by the scale of unacceptable treatment women and families receive. But Ms Topping said the initial findings failed to mention preventable deaths and she did not believe the review would go far enough.

Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said it "very much welcomed" the national investigation.

The baroness has met more than 170 families, including some from Oxfordshire, to hear personal stories and concerns over care.

She said some of the consistent issues identified so far included a lack of cleanliness, women not receiving meals and discriminatory care based on skin colour, class and mental health problems.

Ms Topping said that while some of the points "absolutely ring true", there were "really important parts missing".

"For example, it mentions lack of cleanliness but doesn't actually mention preventable deaths," she said.

"Many of us who have spoken out have children who died preventable deaths."

Keith Strangwood, chairman of Keep the Horton General campaign group, also met the baroness.

The campaign wants full maternity services to be reinstated at Horton General Hospital in Banbury after it was changed to a midwife-led unit in 2016.

"Maternity and mothers having babies and children being born should be the happiest day in your life, it shouldn't be something that you fear," he said.

"We've got mothers telling us that they won't have a second child because the first one was such a traumatic experience."

Baroness Amos said she was "immensely grateful" to those who had shared their experiences, including hospital staff talking about the challenges they faced.

"I know that doing so can be traumatic and stressful, but it is crucial to hear first-hand what is going on," she said.

The review will launch an online "call for evidence" for families in January for eight weeks.

A report containing the investigation's initial findings following the conclusion of the NHS trust site visits will be published in February before the final report and national recommendations come out in the spring.

The recommendations will be turned into a national action plan.

Oxford University Hospitals is one of the 12 trusts examined under the review.

Yvonne Christley, chief nursing officer at the trust, said it was "listening carefully to all feedback".

"It is already helping us to make improvements and to identify areas of good practice we can build upon," she said.

"I know it will have taken great strength for those sharing difficult experiences and I am very grateful to them for doing so."

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