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Women in England are at their highest risk of suffering a serious injury while giving birth since records began in 2020, NHS figures show.

The rate of women sustaining the most serious type of tear during childbirth rose to 31.1 in every 1,000 in January, February and March – the highest since monitoring started in 2020.

Similarly, the rate of women having a postpartum haemorrhage increased during 2025 to 31.2 in every 1,000 births – the highest annual rate over the five years data has been collected.

Helen Morgan, the Liberal Democrat health spokesperson, who obtained the figures from NHS England, said: “Behind these statistics are women going through unimaginable trauma, requiring surgery and in many cases months or even years of recovery. Some will never fully recover.

“This news … shows that we need to treat maternity services as a national crisis. The truth is that we will not reverse this dangerous, unacceptable trend – of rising blood loss and record severe tears – until we make safety a priority.”

NHS bosses and ministers are preparing for the publication on Tuesday of Lady Amos’s government-commissioned report into the state of childbirth care. It will add to the increasingly urgent clamour for a major transformation of often-inadequate childbirth care in order to make it safe.

The government intends to publish an action plan to transform maternity services by the end of the year. But pressure is intensifying for it to spell out its plans sooner.

The rate of third- and fourth-degree perineal tears has risen to 31.1 in 1,000, from 25 in 1,000 when figures were first published in June 2020.

The rate of postpartum haemorrhage – which involves the loss of 1.5 litres of blood – has increased similarly over that time, from 25.6 in 1,000 to last year’s 31.65 in 1,000. It was slightly lower – 31.2 in 1,000 – in early 2026.

The Department of Health and Social Care voiced unease at the birth injury trends.

“These are concerning findings, and as last week’s shocking report into maternity services at Nottingham university hospitals [trust] underlined, too many women are being failed by poor quality maternity care,” a spokesperson said.

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Source: The Guardian, 28 June 2026

One person a week dies with undiagnosed and therefore untreated tuberculosis in England, a study has found.

British-born, older men were among those most likely to have TB diagnosed only after death, researchers said, suggesting healthcare workers could be overlooking the possibility of the disease in these patients.

Being diagnosed with TB postmortem should be considered a “never event” that prompts urgent investigations, they said, describing it as “the ultimate diagnostic delay”.

Tuberculosis rates in England are at a 10-year high, with 9.4 cases per 100,000 people in 2024. The rate is only just below the World Health Organization’s “low incidence country” threshold of 10 cases per 100,000 – a level expected to be breached when 2025 figures are published.

Most TB cases are diagnosed in people born outside the UK, with an average age of 36. But research published in the journal Thorax found that was not the case in those diagnosed after death, who tended to be older and British-born.

“As TB rates continue to rise, we need to keep asking: ‘Could this be TB?’, even in people who do not fit the usual risk profiles,” said Dr Eleanor Morgan, the study’s co-author and a resident doctor at Liverpool University hospitals NHS foundation trust.

“If England is to eliminate TB, reducing delays in diagnosis will be essential so that fewer people miss the opportunity to receive effective treatment.”

The researchers also found children aged under four were at higher risk, which they said could be linked to underdeveloped immune systems, non-specific symptoms, and challenges in getting samples from very young children for testing.

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Source: The Guardian, 29 June 2026