Maternity Services: Reviews
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many major reviews into NHS maternity services have been undertaken since 2000.
Answered by Preet Kaur Gill
There have been six widely recognised major reviews into National Health Service maternity services since 2000, with the caveat that there is no definition of "major review”, which are as follows:
- the Morecambe Bay Investigation led by Bill Kirkup in 2015;
- National Maternity Review ("Better Births") led by Julia Cumberlege, 2015/16;
- the independent review of maternity services at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, led by Donna Ockenden, 2017 to 2022;
- East Kent Investigation ("Reading the Signals") led by Bill Kirkup, 2020 to 2022;
- Nottingham Maternity Review led by Donna Ockenden, 2022 to present; and
- the independent National Maternity and Neonatal Investigation, led by Baroness Amos, 2025 to present.
There have also been two further reviews commissioned by the Government, which will be chaired by Donna Ockenden and underway this year:
- the independent review into maternity and neonatal care at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust; and
- the independent review into maternity and neonatal services at University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust.
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