BBC Scotland’s Lisa Summers trying to keep up the exaggerated image of the significance of Scotland’s National Maternity Review interviewing the Chair, Professor Christine McCourt and claiming that the review came ‘after’ the BBC Disclosure series discovered a series of safety failings.

As with the other Reporting Scotland story today on violent crime, their piece on the Maternity ‘Review‘ is a desparate attempt to give NHS Scotland one of these:

A rapid national investigation into NHS maternity and neonatal services has been ordered by Health and Social Care Secretary, Wes Streeting. This is to provide truth and accountability for impacted families and drive urgent improvements to care and safety, addressing systemic problems dating back over 15 years.

This government inherited a situation where issues in maternity and neonatal care had been ongoing for some time and a series of independent reviews into local trusts had found similar failings in compassionate care – including the failure to listen to women, concerns over safety and issues with leadership and culture.

The investigation will urgently look at worst-performing services in the country but also across the entire maternity system, bringing together the findings of past reviews into one clear national set of actions to ensure every woman and baby receives safe, high-quality and compassionate care. 

Crucially, it will be co-produced with clinicians, experts and parents all feeding in, following a series of private meetings last week between the Secretary of State and families who have been harmed or bereaved by failures in their care. It will begin its work this summer and report back by December 2025. 

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/national-maternity-investigation-launched-to-drive-improvements

Again, we’ve been clarifying this for some time. See these:

Scotland is not having England’s maternity-litigation crisis – AI dismisses Scotsman’s crisis invention

Hard facts on maternity care: Patient satisfaction at ‘Good’ or Excellent’ stable after 7 years at 90% in Scotland and far more getting care ‘when they needed it’ than in NHS England

If there is a crisis in Scotland’s maternity wards why are negligence pay-outs only a third of those in England and why is the Scotsman report double-counting incidents to get a big headline number?

Nottingham, Sussex, Shrewsbury and now Leeds – Why England’s national maternity scandal is not coming to Perth or anywhere in Scotland

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