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MPs to question government on failures over use of epilepsy drug in pregnancy

Senior health officials are to face questioning over why pregnant women are still being prescribed sodium valproate despite its known risks as a cause of birth defects or developmental delays.

Campaigners for families affected by the drug will also give evidence to the Health and Social Care Committee in a one-off session later this month. Alongside campaigners on sodium valproate, the Committee will also hear from campaigners from Association for Children Damaged by Hormone Pregnancy Tests and on behalf of “Sling the Mesh” campaign.

MPs will examine government progress on recommendations made in the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety (IMMDS) Review, which specifically looked into sodium valproate, hormone pregnancy tests and vaginal mesh. An update by Ministers on progress to implement the government’s response was due this summer.  A Minister from the Department of Health and Social Care has been invited to appear before the Committee.

The IMMDS Review’s report called for better communication to inform women of the risks of sodium valproate in pregnancy. Despite an NHS ‘valproate pregnancy prevention programme’, 247 women since April 2018 were found to have been prescribed the drug in a month in which they were pregnant, 25 as recently as April to September last year.

Health and Social Care Committee Chair Jeremy Hunt MP said:

“It is incredibly concerning to know that women of child-bearing age can still be prescribed the epilepsy drug sodium valproate despite its known risks as a cause of birth defects or developmental delays.

It has been two years since Baroness Cumberlege called for urgent action to prevent this happening. However, dozens of pregnant women were prescribed the drug last year while data published last month has shown that safety requirements were not being fully met.

We’re calling in a Minister and senior health officials as well as campaigners to address our concerns.”

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Source: UK Parliament, 2 September 2022

 

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MPs to investigate sexual harassment of female surgeons

MPs will investigate the sexual harassment and sexual assault of female surgeons taking place within the NHS.

BBC News reported women being sexually assaulted even in the operating theatre, while surgery took place.

And the first major report into the problem found female trainees being abused by senior male surgeons.

The Health and Social Care Committee said it would look into the issue and its chair, Steve Brine, said the revelations were "shocking".

"The NHS has a duty to ensure that hospitals are safe spaces for all staff to work in and to hold managers to account to ensure that action is taken against those responsible," Mr Brine said.

"We expect to look into this when we consider leadership in the NHS in our future work."

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Source: BBC News, 13 September 2023

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MPs set to vote on decriminalising abortion in England and Wales

Women would no longer be prosecuted for terminating a pregnancy in England and Wales under a proposed shake-up of abortion laws.

MPs are set to get a free vote next week - meaning they will not be told how to vote by their party - on a change to the law.

It comes amid concern more women are being investigated by police on suspicion of illegally ending a pregnancy.

Abortion is illegal in England and Wales, most often prosecuted under a piece of Victorian legislation, the Offences Against the Person Act of 1861. But it is allowed up to 24 weeks and in certain other circumstances under the terms of the 1967 Abortion Act.

This requires two doctors to sign it off and even before 24 weeks can require a woman to testify that her mental or physical health is at risk.

An amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill, tabled by Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi, aims to decriminalise abortion at any stage by a woman acting in relation to her own pregnancy, ending the threat of investigation or imprisonment.

The framework by which abortion is accessed would remain the same.

But abortions would only need to be signed off by two doctors - as the law currently demands - if the procedure takes place in a hospital or other healthcare setting.

Time limits would also still apply in healthcare settings.

"The police cannot be trusted with abortion law – nor can the CPS or the wider criminal justice system," Antoniazzi said.

"My amendment to the crime and policing bill will give us the urgent change we need to protect women."

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Source: BBC News, 20 June 2025

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MPs launch survey on body image and mental health

A survey looking at the effect of body image on physical and mental health has been launched by MPs in England.

It also asks whether people have used the NHS to deal with body image issues and how successful services have been.

The Health and Social Care Committee will use the survey as part of its ongoing inquiry into the impact of body image.

The committee will hold another parliamentary evidence session on Tuesday. This session will hear from doctors, researchers and people with Body Dysmorphic Disorder.

Questions in the survey cover a range of topics, including whether thoughts and feelings on body image negatively impact quality of life, and which aspects of life are affected the most.

Jeremy Hunt, chairman of the Health and Social Care Committee, said: "Worries about body image can become enormously distressing, particularly for young people.

"To support our inquiry into body image, we're asking people to take part in a survey about how concerns about body image can affect their physical and mental health," he added.

"We want to hear about their experiences of accessing NHS services in relation to body image, whether people know where to go to get help, and whether they feel any stigma in seeking support for health issues relating to body image."

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Source: BBC News, 25 April 2022

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MPs demand ‘urgent’ meeting with government over private clinics exploiting patients

A cross-party group of MPs and peers have written to the health secretary requesting an “urgent” meeting to discuss “unregulated” and “untested” treatments that are being offered to Long Covid patients in the UK.

It comes after The Independent uncovered a wide range of unproven and “dangerous” therapies being touted to patients, few of which have been approved for use in the NHS – or rigorously tested – for alleviating persistent coronavirus symptoms.

Patients with Long Covid are also travelling abroad to clinics in Europe to receive treatments such as “blood washing”, often at a cost of tens of thousands of pounds, according to an ITV and BMJ investigation.

In a letter to health secretary Steve Barclay, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Coronavirus expressed concern that patients “desperately” awaiting treatment through the NHS are being exploited by private clinics, and urged the government to launch an investigation into the provision of unproven care.

The group wrote: “It has come to the attention of the APPG that a number of unregulated long Covid clinics are operating in the UK, offering untested and unscientific treatments to people living with long Covid.

“The evidence our parliamentary group has heard makes it clear that in some parts of the country the current NHS long Covid care pathways are unfit for purpose, with access to NHS long Covid clinics being described as a ‘postcode lottery’.”

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Source: The Independent, 14 July 2022

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MPs criticise ‘staggering’ failures at UK Health Security Agency

Britain’s lead public health body has a staggering lack of control over billions of pounds of spending, and there is no plan for stockpiling vaccines or personal protective equipment (PPE) for a future pandemic, a damning MPs’ report has found.

The public accounts committee was highly critical of the repeated governance and financial failings at the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), which was set up with great fanfare under Boris Johnson.

Meg Hillier, the committee chair, said it would be “utterly inexcusable” for the government to have failed to make serious preparations for future health emergencies and warned the lack of a plan for stockpiling could leave health workers once again exposed to danger as they were in 2020.

The committee lambasted the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), which oversees UKHSA, for lacking a strategy for reserves of PPE, vaccines and medicines despite its mandate to protect the country’s health security.

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Source: The Guardian, 5 July 2023

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MPs call for ban on electroconvulsive therapy for women in mental health care

MPs from across the political spectrum have called for a ban on electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) as a treatment for mental illness in England, and want the practice to be subject to an urgent inquiry.

MPs told The Independent they have serious concerns that women are disproportionally given electroconvulsive therapy, and argued that patients are not properly notified of the treatment’s potential side effects. Some patients have also reported that they weren’t asked to provide consent before it was administered.

Dr Pallavi Devulapalli, a GP, called for the government to undertake an “urgent and comprehensive review” of the treatment as she warned that patients’ wellbeing was “at stake”.

The calls come after The Independent previously reported that thousands of women were being given ECT despite concerns that it can cause irreversible brain damage.

It comes after Dr Sue Cunliffe, who began receiving ECT in 2004, previously told The Independent that the treatment had “completely destroyed” her life despite a psychiatrist having told her there would be no long-term side effects.

Dr Cunliffe, a former children’s doctor, said: “By the end of it, I couldn’t recognise relatives or friends. I couldn’t count money out. I couldn’t do my two times table. I couldn’t navigate anywhere. I couldn’t remember what I’d done from one minute to another.”

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Source: The Independent, 12 March 2023

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MPs back landmark bill to legalise assisted dying in England and Wales

MPs have taken a historic step toward legalising assisted dying in England and Wales by backing a bill that would give some terminally ill people the right to end their own lives.

Campaigners in favour of the terminally ill adults (end of life) bill said it was a significant move towards giving people more choice over the way they die, after the Commons backed the bill by 330 votes for to 275 against.

Brought by the Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, the bill would give terminally ill adults with less than six months to live the right to die once the request has been signed off by two doctors and a high court judge.

It still has further steps to go through before becoming law, and supporters believe assisted dying will not be an option for those with a terminal diagnosis for at least three years.

Figures involved in the hospice and end-of-life care sector who are neutral on the issue called for urgent funding and reform of palliative care to make sure patients have a real choice when dying.

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Source: The Guardian, 29 November 2024

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Mpox: People urged to get vaccine before travelling to impacted areas of Africa

People travelling to areas affected by the recent mpox outbreak in Africa have been urged to get vaccinated by the EU’s public health body.

European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) updated its advice to people going to “epidemic areas” to “consult their healthcare provider or travel health clinic regarding eligibility for vaccination against mpox”.

The alert comes after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global emergency as cases of the disease surge. This week WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described the emergence and spread of a new variant of mpox as “very worrying”.

More than 17,000 mpox cases and at least 571 deaths have been confirmed in Africa this year alone, and at least two cases have now been confirmed outside of the continent.

A new strain, named clade 1, has been identified and is spreading through physical contact. WHO says it has been identified in Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda – all countries that have never reported cases of mpox before.

One case of this new strain has now been detected in Sweden, the country’s public health agency has confirmed. They say the person, who is now in isolation, had contracted it during a stay in an African country where other cases have been reported.

Mpox belongs to the same family of viruses as smallpox but causes milder symptoms like fever, chills and body aches. People with more serious cases can develop characteristic lesions on the face, hands, chest and genitals.

Pamela Rendi-Wagner, director of ECDC, said: “As a result of the rapid spread of this outbreak in Africa, ECDC has increased the level of risk for the general population in the EU/EEA and travellers to affected areas. Due to the close links between Europe and Africa, we must be prepared for more imported clade I cases.”

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Source: Independent, 19 August 2024

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MP says NHS ‘shambles’ is fault of ‘utterly useless senior managers’

A Conservative MP has blamed “far too many overpaid and utterly useless senior managers” for what he described as the “shambles of the NHS.”

Philip Davies, MP for Shipley in Yorkshire, said in an email that the NHS is “appallingly run”, with many senior managers “who wouldn’t be able to get a similar job in the private sector.”

He claimed the NHS “shambles” “is not a problem created by the government,” as “the government’s job is to fund that NHS,” while running the services is done by NHS England and individual trusts.

However, recent analysis indicates that managers make up just 2 per cent of the NHS workforce, compared with 9.5 per cent of the UK workforce. NHS Confederation has said the NHS is “as a whole under, not over, managed,” despite “persistent and misleading media headlines.”

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Source: HSJ, 16 January 2023

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MP claims Yorkshire NHS Trust's leadership has 'gone rogue' in letter to Health Secretary

The leadership of a Yorkshire NHS trust have “gone rogue” with governance “in free fall”, a city MP has alleged in a letter to Health Secretary Wes Streeting.

Bradford West MP Naz Shah, in a letter published in full on X to her 65,000 followers, has raised concerns about the running of Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and called for the removal of chair Sarah Jones.

It comes after NHS England took enforcement action against the trust last summer following concerns raised by former chair Max Mclean, who resigned in October 2023 and is now pursuing a whistleblowing claim.

Reports said that since his resignation “there has been a subsequent deterioration in relationships between members of the board, including in relation to culture and behaviour, made by some members against others [which]... give rise to significant concerns as to how the board is operating”. It also warned the trust was on course to record a £14m financial deficit this year.

In her letter to Mr Streeting and NHS England chief executive Amanda Pritchard, Ms Shah said she has been raising “serious concerns” about the trust for 15 months and claimed there has been a “witch hunt” against governors who have raised concerns, with attempts to oust them.

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Source: The Yorkshire Post, 17 February 2025

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MP calls on SRA to investigate law firm in NHS dispute

Liberal Democrat MP Sir Norman Lamb has called on the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) to investigate national law firm Hill Dickinson over claims it failed to disclose a crucial document in a whistleblowing dispute involving the NHS.

The SRA said it had received “a number of reports” about the matter and would be “seeking further information before deciding on any next steps”.

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Source: Legal Futures, 2 October 2019

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Moving A&E patients to other departments has ‘high mishap rate’

The authors of a new study in Australia, published in the Emergency Medicine Journal, have said moving emergency care patients to other hospital departments by wheelchair or trolley is prone to a high rate of mishaps, with nearly 40% leading to incidents.

The study, which took place at Austin Hospital, a teaching hospital in the Melbourne suburb of Heidelberg, also found endotracheal tubes, ventilator hoses, and arterial lines were also associated with high mishap rates. 

“Risk events are common and some result in harm. Risk factors include a high equipment number, transport to a ward and some abnormal vital signs. As many risk events are likely preventable, our identified predisposing factors may inform preventative strategies that may benefit other emergency departments.” The authors have said. 

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Source: Nursing Times, 24 August 2021

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Mouth-cancer deaths fear over NHS dentist shortage

Lack of access to dentists is costing lives because mouth cancers are not being spotted or treated early enough, a health charity has told BBC News.

The disease killed more than 3,000 people in 2021 - up 46%, from 2,075 a decade ago, latest figures obtained by the Oral Health Foundation show.

And last year, a BBC News investigation revealed 90% of UK NHS dental practices were not accepting new adult patients.

The government has announced plans to increase dental-training places by 40%. It also said the NHS was treating more people for cancer at an earlier stage than ever before.

Oral Health Foundation chief executive Nigel Carter says dental check-ups "are a key place for identifying the early stage of mouth cancer".

"With access to NHS dentistry in tatters, we fear that many people with mouth cancer will not receive a timely diagnosis," he adds.

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Source: BBC News, 8 November 2023

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Mouth cancer causes grow as cases skyrocket in UK

Cases of mouth cancer in the UK have increased by more than one-third in the last decade to hit a record high, according to a new report.

The number of cases has more than doubled within the last generation and previous common causes like smoking and drinking are being added to by other lifestyle factors.

According to the Oral Health Foundation, 8,864 people in the UK were diagnosed with the disease last year – up 36% on a decade ago, with 3,034 people losing their life to it within the year.

This is an increase in deaths of 40% in the last 10 years, and a 20% rise in the last five.

Dr Nigel Carter, the chief executive of the Oral Health Foundation, said: “While most cancers are on the decrease, cases of mouth cancer continue to rise at an alarming rate".

Survival rates for mouth cancer have barely improved in the last 20 years, partly because so many cases are diagnosed too late. Just over half of all mouth cancers are diagnosed at stage four – where the cancer is at its most advanced.

The findings from the Oral Health Foundation have been released to coincide with November’s Mouth Cancer Action Month.

The goal of the Oral Health Foundation is to improve people’s lives by reducing the harm caused by oral diseases – many of which are entirely preventable.

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Source: The Independent, 9 November 2022

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Motivation gap grows between bank and substantive staff

NHS bank staff motivation and engagement have increased in a new national survey, in contrast to falling scores among other colleagues.

The results also revealed a widening gap between the proportion who look forward to work and are enthusiastic about their job, compared to their peers.

The 2025 staff survey for bank workers showed motivation rose slightly to just under 7.5 out of 10. This fell to below 6.9 – the worst score in recent years – for substantive staff in results released last month.

The overall engagement score – which also covers involvement and advocacy – had a small rise to 6.93 for bank staff last year, compared to a historic low of 6.75 reported by substantive staff. 

The results showed bank staff were more likely to look forward to going to work at 67% of respondents compared to 52% of substantive staff, with the gap in scores over 3 percentage points wider than in 2023.

However, nearly one in four bank-only workers said they had experienced physical violence within the past 12 months, which has declined slightly from 25% the year before.

This is still significantly higher than the 15% reported by their substantive colleagues and varied by ethnic background.

The report said: “For female white bank workers, the proportion experiencing violence at work from patients or the public has decreased compared to last year and, at 22%, is at a three-year low.

“The proportion of male white workers experiencing at least one incident of physical violence from patients or the public has also decreased, whereas male workers from all other ethnic groups have seen an increase in experiences of violence this year, with more than three in ten … experiencing such behaviour in 2025.”

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Source: HSJ, 27 April 2026

 

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Mothers who helped uncover the biggest NHS maternity scandal

Next month, a report will be published into one of the biggest scandals in the history of the NHS, the failures of maternity care at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust. The BBC's Michael Buchanan who helped uncover the problems examines why so many failures were allowed to happen for so long.

Kayleigh Griffiths' baby, Pippa, died at 31 hours old. The cause of death, the couple were later told, was an infection - Group B Strep. The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust told the family they would carry out an investigation. But after several weeks of silence, Kayleigh contacted the trust to be told it was an internal investigation and the couple's input wouldn't be required. Kayleigh, an NHS auditor at a different trust, feared the truth was being hidden from her. That's when she decided to send the email to Rhiannon Davies, whose baby, Kate, also died at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust

As the bond between the mothers deepened, their conversations morphed into something else. Armed with little more than a gnawing suspicion, they started to scour the internet, coroner's records and death notices to see if any other families had received poor maternity care at the Shropshire trust.

They collated 23 cases dating back to 2000 - including stillbirths, neonatal deaths, maternal deaths and babies born with brain injuries. Appalled by what they had found, they wrote to the then health secretary Jeremy Hunt in December 2016, asking him to order an investigation. He agreed and in May 2017, senior midwife Donna Ockenden was appointed to lead the review.

One of the themes the inquiry has already noted, in an interim report published in December 2020, is that in many cases the trust failed to investigate after something went wrong, or simply carried out its own inquiry. Panorama has discovered the trust even developed its own investigation system, what they called a High Risk Case Review.

It was outside any national framework that has been used to help learn lessons from incidents and doesn't appear to be a system that's used in any other NHS organisation. Another consequence of the unorthodox system was that fewer incidents were reported to NHS regulators, limiting the opportunity to learn lessons.

One of the earliest cases on the original list of 23 compiled by the two couples was the death of Kathryn Leigh in 2000. Panorama has investigated the case and discovered that a theme identified almost two decades ago was to come up repeatedly in subsequent incidents.

The publication of the final report by Donna Ockenden next month will be a watershed moment in the history of the NHS - the revelation of multiple instances of maternity failures in a rural corner of England. Pippa Griffiths and Kate Stanton-Davies lived fewer than 40 hours between them, but their legacy, in terms of improved maternity care, could last decades.

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Source: BBC News, 23 February 2022

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Mothers needlessly separated from babies under UK hospital Covid rules

Mothers are being needlessly separated from their babies under strict hospital restrictions introduced to stop the spread of COVID-19, doctors and charities have warned.

The measures preventing UK parents from staying with their babies when one or both require hospital treatment are causing trauma and increasing the risk of physical and mental health problems, it is claimed.

Some parents of sick babies are also being barred from seeing their child in neonatal units, which is causing distress and preventing bonding.

Campaigners have written to the health secretary, Matt Hancock, to raise their concerns. They want hospitals to review these policies urgently and have called for a working group to draw up national standards to meet families’ needs during pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding.

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Source: The Guardian, 16 November 2020

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Mothers came to harm at maternity unit says report

Mothers and newborn babies came to harm because of staffing shortages and a "toxic" culture at Edinburgh's maternity unit, according to a whistleblowing investigation seen by BBC News.

NHS Lothian commissioned a report into the obstetrics triage and assessment unit at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary after a member of staff raised concerns in February this year.

The investigation upheld or partially upheld 17 concerns about safety.

NHS Lothian said an "improvement plan" designed to enhance patient safety and improve the working environment for staff was already under way as a result of the report.

The health board said a detailed review was taking place into the death in a bid to give the family much-needed answers.

But staff say they fear the risks to patients remain.

"We are afraid we can't provide safe patient care and that women and babies are being harmed," one staff member said, speaking to the BBC anonymously.

"The situation has been getting worse over the past five years and it is at its worst now."

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Source: BBC News, 10 December 2024

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Mothers beg for their sons to be released from locked hospital units

Three mothers whose sons have been locked in hospital psychiatric units in Scotland for years have spoken to the BBC because they’re desperate to get them out.

The three young men did not break the law but have autism and learning disabilities.

Jamie has autism and was sectioned after becoming distressed at 19. Although he was free to go after 3 months there was no where for him to go so he has lived in hospital units since then. He is now 24.

The Scottish government said it was unacceptable to hold people with complex needs in hospital when they could be cared for in the community.

"He's left to rot", says his mother.

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Source: BBC News, 9 February 2022

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Mothers at risk of premature birth could be identified as soon as 10 weeks into pregnancy, study finds

According to a new study, mothers at risk of premature birth could be identified as soon as 10 weeks into their pregnancy.

The study, conducted by King's College London and published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, found that by looking for specific bacteria in the in a pregnant woman’s cervicovaginal fluid, it could reveal warning signs for premature birth, meaning inflammation can be found and treated early to protect mothers and babies.

Study author Andrew Shennan OBE, who is Professor of obstetrics at King’s College London, explained: “Premature birth is very hard to predict, so doctors have to err on the side of caution and mothers deemed to be at risk often don’t actually have their babies early, putting undue strain on everyone involved. My team has developed preterm birth prediction tools that are very accurate later in pregnancy, like fetal fibronectin tests – but at that stage, you can only manage the risks, not stop it from happening. The sooner we can find out who’s at risk, the more we can do to keep mothers and babies safe.”

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Source: The Independent, 23 August 2021

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Mothers and midwives from across Africa and UK demand world leaders protect women giving birth

Midwifes, health works and mothers from across Africa and the UK have held a protest outside the World Health Assembly in Geneva to end the scandal of women giving birth in dangerous clinics and maternity wards without clean water.

Frontline health workers and mothers from Tanzania, Nigeria, Morocco, Ghana and the UK beat drums, waved blue fabric and held placards calling on world leaders to take action.

Silviana Swallo, a midwife from Tanzania said: "I can't speak about midwifery care without adequate water supply. Water is health for mothers, newborns and health care providers." Her colleague Christina Mhando, WaterAid Tanzania's head of policy, said: "The solutions exist, they're simple and cheap. We just need them to listen and act."

The protest was organised as part of WaterAid's "Time to Deliver" campaign, which The Independent has worked on, that calls on world leaders to use the upcoming United Nations (UN) Water Conference in December to ensure that every health centre worldwide has clean water, decent sanitation and proper hygiene facilities.

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Source: The Independent, 19 May 2026

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Mothers and babies being put at risk due to unsafe NHS maternity services, report says

Mothers and babies are being put at risk because maternity services are still providing unsafe care, despite a series of scandals that have cost lives, the NHS ombudsman has warned.

More tragedies will occur unless the health service takes decisive action to put an end to repeated and deeply ingrained problems which lead to “the same mistakes over and over again”, he said.

Rob Behrens, the NHS ombudsman for England, voiced his concerns when he launched a report on Tuesday which details the failings several women experienced while giving birth. It also sets out the lessons the NHS needs to learn, but Behrens claimed that too many trusts were not doing so.

Behrens voiced alarm that, although efforts have been made to improve the care mothers and their children receive, progress is too slow – and that means patients remain in danger.

His report says that: “We recognise that people working in maternity services want to provide high-quality care. Culture, systems and processes can get in the way of achieving that goal.

“But improvements are not happening quickly enough, and we have not seen sustainable change. We must do more to make services safer for everyone.”

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Source: The Guardian, 28 March 2023

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Mothers and babies at risk of harm in ‘toxic’ NHS cover-up culture, health leader to say

Mothers and babies being harmed in the NHS risks becoming normalised because of its toxic cover-up culture, a health leader will say, as it emerged that 14 trusts are the focus of a national maternity investigation in England.

Charles Massey, the chief executive of the General Medical Council, will tell a conference on Monday that “something must have gone badly wrong” when trainee obstetrics and gynaecology doctors are fearful of speaking up.

The “tribal” nature of medicine with doctors and other staff pitted against each other could be preventing people from raising their concerns or admitting when things go wrong, Massey will say.

His stark warning came as the government named 14 NHS trusts that are being examined as part of its rapid inquiry into maternity and neonatal services in England.

They are:

  • Barking, Havering and Redbridge university hospitals NHS trust.
  • Blackpool teaching hospitals NHS foundation trust.
  • Bradford teaching hospitals NHS foundation trust.
  • East Kent hospitals NHS trust.
  • Gloucestershire hospitals NHS foundation trust.
  • Leeds teaching hospitals NHS trust.
  • Oxford university hospitals NHS foundation trust.
  • Sandwell and West Birmingham hospitals NHS trust.
  • Shrewsbury and Telford hospital NHS trust.
  • The Queen Elizabeth hospital, King’s Lynn NHS foundation trust.
  • University hospitals of Leicester NHS trust.
  • University hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS foundation trust.
  • University hospitals Sussex NHS foundation trust.
  • Yeovil district hospital NHS foundation trust/Somerset NHS foundation trust.

The investigation, first announced in June and being led by Valerie Amos, will use lessons learned from previous inquiries to create one “clear set of actions”, in an effort to improve NHS care.

Alongside the investigation, which is due to report preliminary findings in December, a maternity and neonatal taskforce has been set up, chaired by Wes Streeting and made up of experts and bereaved families.

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Source: The Guardian, 15 September 2025

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Mothers and babies at risk as vital health services in England stay shut

Mothers and babies are being put at risk as vital health checks and support services remain shut months after lockdown was lifted, health professionals and charities have warned.

Face-to-face services for new families stopped when lockdown began in March last year and have not come back in many parts of the country. Now experts fear the spread of the Omicron variant and the reintroduction of some restrictions means the reopening will be delayed further.

Missing services include drop-in baby-weighing clinics, tongue-tie clinics, face-to-face breastfeeding support and council-run baby classes and playgroups.

Experts have accused the government of failing to prioritise the needs of a generation of babies and their parents, with cost-cutting and a shortage of midwives and health visitors blamed for the closures.

Health visitor drop-in clinics are “no longer running” in nearly a third of areas, and around 28% of newborn checks are being carried out via phone or video call, according to the No One Wants to See My Baby report by charities the Parent-Infant Foundation, Home-Start UK and Best Beginnings.

The Institute of Health Visiting said different interpretations of government guidance meant some areas had brought back full services while others had not, creating a “postcode lottery of support for families”.

It questioned official advice that routine checks could continue to be done via video and telephone calls, warning there was no evidence these were “safe or effective”.

Executive director Alison Morton said: “Alongside the concerns of parents, there is a growing body of evidence that childhood conditions and disabilities are being missed, and vulnerable babies and young children are being harmed, as they are invisible to services when these assessments are not completed face to face.”

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Source: The Guardian, 12 December 2021

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