at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, faced long delays for labour to be induced – the longest waits at potentially almost eight days.

Notably, in the wake of last night’s dramatic Sky TV News reporting on the maternity crisis in NHS England as they await the Baroness Amos Inquiry report, BBC Reporting Scotland, this morning in their BBC Breakfast insert, headlined the above report which does contain some concerns based on the comments of ‘some’ staff and patients. The health board has already put in place remediation.

‘Some’ is never quantified. The website has this:

The word ‘unsafe’ only appears twice in the report:

Within incident forms there was a number submitted with reference to unsafe staffing due to skill mix and references to shifts impacting on junior midwife wellbeing during staff shortages.

Staff at times described their working conditions as “unsafe” or “dangerous.”

The word ‘some’ is missing in the BBC headline and could mislead readers.

What is the scale and seriousness of the situation in NHS England?

Some of the major investigations include:

Trust / Inquiry	Scale reported in media and official investigations
Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (Donna Ockenden review)	Review of 1,862 cases; concluded that hundreds of babies died or suffered brain injury because of inadequate care, with 201 baby deaths identified where different care might have changed the outcome. https://www.theguardian.com/global/2026/feb/26/what-is-the-national-maternity-and-neonatal-investigation-and-why-launched?utm_source=chatgpt.com
Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust	The largest NHS maternity inquiry to date, examining around 2,500 families’ cases over more than a decade. Media reports focus on numerous baby deaths and serious injuries, but the final attributable total has not yet been established https://www.thesun.co.uk/health/39276475/baby-deaths-midwives-too-busy-mums-nhs/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Baroness Amos is currently looking at 8 000 cases in NHS England.https://www.itv.com/news/2026-02-25/nhs-maternity-care-failing-women-and-babies-investigation-finds?utm_source=chatgpt.com

The above HCIS report makes no claims of baby death or harm due to inadequate care and across NHS Scotland:

Unlike NHS England, Scotland has not experienced a single large-scale national maternity scandal involving hundreds of avoidable baby deaths across multiple trusts, and there is no widely reported aggregate figure for babies thought to have died because of failures in NHS Scotland maternity care.

The media and official investigations have instead centred on a small number of significant local incidents and inquiries.

The largest formally established finding is the Fatal Accident Inquiry into three neonatal deaths at two Lanarkshire hospitals between 2019 and 2021. In March 2025, Sheriff Principal Aisha Anwar concluded that all three deaths could potentially have been avoided had appropriate warning signs been recognised and acted upon, leading to a series of recommendations for maternity services. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/mar/18/scottish-judge-finds-hospital-deaths-of-three-newborn-babies-could-have-been-avoided?utm_source=chatgpt.com

More recently, Healthcare Improvement Scotland inspections have identified serious safety concerns at individual units:

• the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow, where inspectors found delays to induction of labour, estate problems, medicines management failures and governance concerns; and
• Ninewells Hospital in Dundee, where inspectors highlighted missing foetal monitoring equipment, induction delays and shortcomings in safety systems. https://www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/article/qeuh-maternity-unit-mould-leaks-86mz32lhx?utm_source=chatgpt.com

However, these reports do not conclude that a defined number of baby deaths were caused by those failings. They identify risks and require improvements to prevent future harm.