500 families in Oxford call for maternity unit to be investigated
Hours after giving birth, with her son rushed away to a high dependency unit, as she lay broken and bleeding, Morgan Joines overheard a midwife blaming her.
Her son had been born with wet lung after an emergency and traumatic caesarean section.
"I overheard [the midwife] tell a student nurse I was the reason my son was ill, because I was too lazy to push," she told Sky News.
"I was broken. I genuinely believed for ages afterwards that I had failed my son."
Her son was born at John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, part of the Oxford University's Hospital Trust. Morgan is one of more than 500 families who say they have been harmed by maternity care at the Trust.
On Monday, the health secretary, Wes Streeting, announced a "rapid" national investigation into NHS maternity services.
A taskforce, chaired by Mr Streeting and made up of experts and bereaved families, will first investigate up to ten of the most concerning maternity and neonatal units.
And campaigners - calling themselves the Families Failed by OUH Maternity Services - are calling for Oxford to be on that initial list.
The CQC flagged issues around maintaining patient dignity, and said medicines were not always safely stored and managed. The unit did not manage the control of infection consistently it said, and wards were not always kept clean.
One mum told the campaign group she thought she was going to die after being left alone while in labour and denied pain relief.
Another said she is reluctant to consider having another child and feels a "profound loss of trust in the NHS".
Source: Sky News, 26 June 2025