
Thanks to Dottie once more for alerting me to this.
This Sky News special on maternity services, ‘in this country’, is of course about England.
They go on quickly to relate their special to the report by Baroness Amos and remind us that it made ‘pretty horrific reading.’
I watched no further.
Why?
Baroness Amos looked only at England.
Is the Sky News special likely to be informative on Scotland?
No, because:
Thousands of babies and mothers avoidably dead in maternity trusts, twelve trusts under investigation and two trusts face police investigations into potential corporate manslaughter and gross negligence manslaughter but all are in England
From BBC West Yorkshire and across BBC TV News broadcasts, 23 February 2026 :
Health Secretary Wes Streeting said he takes the concerns of bereaved families “extremely seriously” after acknowledging trust had been “damaged” around a promised Leeds maternity care inquiry. He announced the investigation into Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust in October, after a BBC investigation revealed that the deaths of at least 56 babies over the past five years may have been prevented. But nobody has been appointed to chair the inquiry, leading to some families urging Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to intervene. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgj9yznzg7o
Is this a one-off?
No.
Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (Shropshire, England):
The Ockenden Review (final report 2022) found that repeated failures over two decades (2000–2019) may have led to the deaths of over 200 babies (including 131 stillbirths and 70 neonatal deaths) and 9 mothers that could or would have been avoided with better care. It also identified hundreds of cases of brain damage or other injuries. This is one of the largest maternity scandals in NHS history. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/final-report-of-the-ockenden-review
Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (Nottingham, England):
An ongoing large-scale inquiry (the largest of its kind in the NHS) is examining around 2,500 cases. Reports indicate hundreds of babies have died or been injured (e.g., at least 46 with permanent brain damage and 19 stillbirths between 2010–2020). The trust has faced prosecutions, fines, and a corporate manslaughter investigation related to specific baby deaths. https://www.ockendenmaternityreview.org.uk/
East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust (Kent, England):
The 2022 Kirkup report (“Reading the Signals”) concluded that poor care between 2009 and 2020 led to avoidable harm in many cases, including dozens of baby deaths and injuries that might have been prevented if standards had been followed (e.g., 97 out of 202 reviewed cases could have had different outcomes). https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/maternity-and-neonatal-services-in-east-kent-reading-the-signals-report
Those three, with West Yorkshire, are the worst cases, but Baroness Amos is currently investigating 12 trusts, and two of them face police investigations into potential corporate manslaughter and gross negligence manslaughter
Have there been any comparable cases in NHS Scotland?
In Scotland, maternity care has faced criticism, including a report of nearly £100 million paid out in negligence claims over recent years (covering birth injuries, stillbirths, etc.). However, no single trust-level inquiry has identified dozens of preventable deaths in a comparable way.
Sources for the above claim? None. Of course, that’s the evidence. Does anyone think Scotland’s media would not cover a similar case here, if there was one? Look at their feeding frenzy on the QEUH and one or two deaths linked (by them) to water supply.
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