Helen Morgan is the MP for North Shropshire and the Co-Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Baby Loss
The birth of a child should be the happiest moment of every parent’s life. Yet here in Shropshire almost all of us know a family who have instead faced devastation because of the death, or serious injury, of a baby that could have been avoided.
It was in March last year that the Ockenden Report was published and outlined catastrophic failings in maternity care in Shropshire. In the 18 months since, progress has been made at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital, however, Donna Ockenden has remained busy and is now investigating a similar scandal in Nottingham.
As it stands, the Government will miss its target of halving stillbirths, maternal deaths, neonatal deaths and serious brain injury from their 2010 levels by 2025. There is no target for improvement beyond that point. I believe the avoidable death of a baby is something we should be working to eliminate.
Indeed it is staffing issues that are behind most of these problems. There are not enough midwives and the midwives we do have are overworked and undervalued. Last year 63 per cent of midwives said they had felt unwell because of stress in the last 12 months. A decrease in staffing levels has been down to staff sickness rates, overtime and poor job satisfaction.
However, the issues in Nottingham, East Kent and elsewhere demonstrate how much more national work needs to be done.
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