Maternity service whistleblower says families deserve public inquiry

Speaking about the national review, Ford said she was “really disappointed to see that a public inquiry is not one of those recommendations, when you consider the harm and the system failure at every level”.

In her review, Baroness Amos included eight recommendations on how the maternity and neonatal system can be redesigned to deliver fundamental change.

They included the creation of a “statutory Maternity and Neonatal Commissioner” to oversee change, and for the system, including the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS trusts, to “take action to listen to the voices of women, birthing people and families”.

The review found Somerset NHS Foundation Trust’s Yeovil District Hospital maternity service is inconsistent, poorly coordinated, slow to respond and too often dismissive of families’ concerns.

It also found some women with high-risk pregnancies, who were told they were on consultant-led care, never saw a consultant, and that families said that they been treated differently based on their race and ethnicity.

The regulator, the Care Quality Commission, reported concerns in 2024, leading to the temporary closure of Yeovil’s maternity services.

The BBC previously reported that concerns about a shortage of consultants were raised in 2017 and again in 2019 by Ford while she was working for the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB).