The Royal College of Midwives (RCM) has welcomed the announcement of Baroness Valerie Amos as chair of the review of maternity and neonatal safety, announced by the Secretary of State for Health & Social Care in June. However, the College’s reaction is tempered by frustration of the pace of the so-called rapid review.
Gill Walton, Chief Executive of the Royal College of Midwives, said:
“We are pleased to hear of the appointment of Baroness Amos as chair of the rapid review. She has a reputation for taking a thoughtful and strategic approach and we welcome her fresh insight into maternity and neonatal safety. It is absolutely vital, though, that this review gets underway quickly. When he announced it in June, we welcomed Wes Streeting’s commitment to publishing the review by Christmas, a promise he repeated at the Progress in Partnership summit on maternity and neonatal safety last month. However, we are already halfway through August, with no terms of reference, no sense of the Trusts who are likely to be part of the review or no clarity on how the review will be conducted.
“Every woman and family should leave maternity and neonatal services whole, happy and healthy, and every member of maternity staff should start and end their shift knowing they have provided safe, good quality care. At the moment, that simply isn’t the case. Previous reviews and countless Care Quality Commission reports have flagged the same the systemic failings that are at the heart of the issues facing maternity and neonatal care issues time and time again: unsafe staffing; poor workplace cultures; and not listening to women. In spite of that, there has been no forward movement. Wes Streeting promised to change that. Thousands of midwives and maternity support workers, and the whole of the maternity community, are desperate for him to keep that promise and deliver the change we all want to see.”
At the Progress in Partnership summit in July, the Health Secretary acknowledged that “today and every other day there are excellent examples of good maternity care”. The RCM has urged the rapid review to look at these examples, as well as where services are not meeting the standards of care.
Gill added:
“Looking solely at Trusts who are struggling is unlikely to tell us anything new. If we are truly to make progress and provide the high quality care women and families deserve and the midwifery community wants to provide, we have to learn from those Trusts and services who are doing it already. I hope that, under Baroness Amos’s leadership, this will form part of the review – and I hope that she will act swiftly to deliver a rapid review that’s worthy of the name.”
ENDS
To contact the RCM Media Office email media@rcm.org.uk or call 07767 999341
