Summary:
- The NHS in England faces a £27 billion liability due to historic failings in maternity care, highlighting systemic issues over the past decade.
- Rising clinical negligence claims in maternity services gain attention amid hospital scandals and increased maternal deaths, despite declining birth rates.
- Inquiry leader Donna Ockenden attributes the issues to government inaction, citing ignored recommendations from previous investigations.
- The government has launched an independent investigation and a maternity taskforce to develop a national action plan for reforming maternity care.
- Health Secretary Jane Edmonds announces measures to improve transparency, including maternity quality metrics in the NHS App and safety league tables.
- Maternal deaths have increased, with significant disparities affecting Black, Asian, and socioeconomically disadvantaged women, prompting criticism of systemic care gaps.
The National Health Service in England is now facing a £27 billion liability tied to historic failings in maternity care — a figure described by health experts as “absolutely shocking” and illustrative of deeper systemic breakdowns spanning more than a decade.
The number, which represents the estimated cost of clinical negligence claims related to maternity services, emerges amid renewed scrutiny following a series of hospital scandals and a steady increase in maternal deaths, even as birth rates across the country decline.
Donna Ockenden, the senior midwife leading the largest ongoing inquiry into NHS maternity services — centred on failings in Nottingham — drew a direct line between the current state of care and what she characterized as prolonged government inaction. “We gave them a blueprint,” Ockenden said. “They did not implement it. That’s why we’re in a difficult situation today.”
She pointed specifically to missed opportunities to implement recommendations from earlier investigations, including her own review of the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust, which exposed preventable deaths and injuries involving hundreds of mothers and babies.
In response to mounting pressure, the government has announced a national independent investigation into maternity and neonatal services. Alongside this, it has launched a maternity taskforce to oversee the development of a national action plan aimed at reforming the system, with Health Secretary Jane Edmonds chairing the initiative.
“We must confront the failings of the past while building services fit for the future,” Edmonds stated during her remarks to Parliament. She outlined steps to improve transparency, including the incorporation of maternity quality metrics into the NHS App and the introduction of league tables designed to track safety and patient outcomes across hospital trusts.
However, the newly announced measures arrive against a backdrop of troubling statistics. Maternal deaths in England have increased from 209 in the period 2015 to 2017, to 254 between 2021 and 2023, even though the number of births has declined over the same time frame.
Experts have pointed to persistent inequalities, with Black and Asian women, as well as those from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds, continuing to experience significantly poorer outcomes in pregnancy and childbirth. These disparities were brought into sharp focus during Birth Trauma Awareness Week, observed nationally from July 14 to 20, where campaigners emphasized that systemic gaps in care are disproportionately harming already vulnerable populations.
The launch of the National Maternity Investigation this July marks the latest attempt to confront these structural issues head-on. Yet critics argue that piecemeal efforts and delayed implementation of earlier recommendations have undermined trust in maternity care — and increased the human and financial costs.
Whether the current push for reform will yield meaningful change remains unclear. For many affected families, the answers may come too late. But officials maintain that the new framework represents a shift in approach. As Edmonds put it, “This must be the moment we turn promises into outcomes.”
Background:
Here is how this event developed over time:
- May 2022: Donna Ockenden was appointed to lead the independent review of maternity services at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, following the replacement of a regionally led review.
- August 2024: In an article for The BMJ, Ockenden warned that her upcoming report would reveal widespread NHS maternity failures, with over £1 billion per year spent on compensation instead of service improvements.
- February 2025: The publication of the Ockenden Review was postponed from September 2025 to June 2026 due to increased family involvement.
- February 2025: Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust was fined £1.6 million for avoidable baby deaths involving Kahlani, Quinn, and Adele, prompting renewed calls for systemic change.
- May 2025: Ockenden asserted in an interview with Index on Censorship that significant investment and a cultural shift toward listening to women were essential to resolve the crisis, noting that annual compensation costs exceed direct funding for maternity services.
- July 2025: The Guardian reported that NHS liability for maternity negligence had reached £27 billion since 2019, with annual claims doubling since 2007 to 1,400 in 2023.
- July 2025: Labour MP Paulette Hamilton condemned the rising negligence figures as “absolutely shocking” and described the death and injury numbers as “devastatingly high.”
- July 2025: The UK government launched a national maternity investigation and taskforce, promising greater transparency through NHS App performance metrics and the introduction of league tables.