East Kent Maternity Services: Independent Investigation

Baroness Gohir Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Gohir (CB)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for being patient with me, as I am still learning the rules. I draw attention to my interests in the register. Given the continuous maternity concerns raised in this and many other reports, including by women’s groups, is it time to have a maternity commissioner? As the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, mentioned, what needs to happen to ensure that we get that change? Could the answer be a maternity commissioner who is independent and who then holds the Government to account?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

The noble Baroness is right to say that it is clear that we have not got it right to date, as shown by the fact that these instances have come up. We are taking the right steps with the Maternity Safety Support Programme that we have put in place, and its ability to put trusts into special measures—as I say, that has already been done on 23 occasions and it is being considered for another 10. I believe we have got those early warning indicators in place now, and trusts are being held to account. At the same time, we have to be open, to make sure that we continue to look at and review this, to see whether it has sufficient teeth and, dare I say, intelligence to properly identify these areas. If it does not manage to do that, we must make sure we put in something else, in addition to what is there already.