Women and NHS bosses cannot trust official ratings to tell them whether maternity units are safe, MPs warned

By SHAUN WOOLLER, EXECUTIVE HEALTH EDITOR Published: 14:48, 15 July 2026 | Updated: 14:57, 15 July 2026 Women and NHS bosses cannot trust official ratings to tell them whether maternity units are safe, MPs were warned today. Baroness Valerie Amos said she realised during her national maternity review that the Care Quality Commission is incapable of delivering consistently reliable assessments. She revealed inspectors had identified seven significant safety failures at one hospital trust - including women leaving maternity triage without being assessed - yet still rated it ‘good’. Meanwhile, fellow maternity investigator Donna Ockenden delivered an equally damning verdict as she also gave evidence to the Commons Health and Social Care Committee this morning. She declared that healthcare regulators were in the ‘last chance saloon’ after ignoring warnings and missing opportunities to intervene over many years. It means pregnant women may enter supposedly good maternity services without knowing that serious dangers have already been identified. Lady Amos, whose National Maternity and Neonatal Investigation was published last month, told the committee of cross-party MPs: ‘We feel very strongly that the CQC cannot provide the assurance on safety in a consistent way.’ She said the consequences extended beyond the public ratings seen by patients because NHS boards use the regulator’s findings to decide which problems require urgent action. Baroness Valerie Amos (pictured) published her National Maternity and Neonatal Investigation last month. ‘This is the lever that trust boards use to identify what is critical and what needs changing in their trust, and if you can't trust the regulator and can't trust what the regulator is telling you, then you are not going to end up with a service that has better quality and is safer for women and families,’ she warned. Her national review found significant differences in the way CQC inspectors operate around the country, a lack of clear standards and ‘insufficient expertise'. She said: ‘Indeed, when we talked to some trusts, that even in the midst of an investigation, what they were being judged against changed as they were being investigated.’ Asked whether the move towards more generalist inspections had contributed to the failures, Lady Amos replied: ‘Yes, absolutely.’ Her investigation concluded that maternity and neonatal services should be inspected by specialists who understand the pressures, risks and warning signs within the units they are assessing, so they can recognise when they are failing. Ms Ockenden, whose most recent probe found more than 500 mothers and babies suffered avoidable harm or died due to ‘deeply embedded systemic failures’ at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, gave a stark assessment of the wider regulatory system. She said coroners had repeatedly identified negligence and raised concerns but regulators had failed to understand the scale of the problem. ‘There were lots of opportunities for regulators to understand,’ she told MPs. Donna Ockenden (pictured) said her most recent probe found more than 500 mothers and babies suffered avoidable harm or died due to ‘deeply embedded systemic failures’ at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust. She said the General Medical Council, Nursing and Midwifery Council and CQC had begun improving their relationships with families, but only after prolonged pressure. ‘That has been hard won. That has been hard work,’ she said. Ms Ockenden added: ‘I think we are on last chance saloon.’  The government has vowed to produce a maternity action plan in response to the Amos review within six months but Ms Ockenden warned it must be done sooner as more mothers and babies could suffer further harm while ministers dither. She told MPs the health service already knows what needs to change after years of scandals, reviews and ignored recommendations - but has repeatedly failed to act. Ms Ockenden stressed the state of maternity care means the nation does not have the ‘luxury’ of six months and added: ‘If we were to look at how many midwives will hang up their uniforms in the next six months. ‘How many doctors will decide they can't do this anymore, and how much harm potentially could be caused? ‘I would say we don't have six months to create an action plan.’ Her warning was reinforced by Lady Amos, whose investigation heard from more than 10,500 people, visited 22 hospitals and examined 9,500 pieces of evidence. She said: ’The biggest risk is that there is insufficient monitoring, that it all takes too long, that things fall off the end, that they are told that there are capacity and other issues that make this difficult.’ She urged the Government to implement her recommendations in full, rather than simply choosing the cheapest or easiest ones, pleading: ‘Please don't do pick and mix here.’ Labour MP Alex McIntyre, who sits on the Committee, recalled how one constituent had reported continuing to feel pain after being given a spinal block and was met with a tut from a male consultant who said: 'It's not magic.’ Another was reportedly told ‘it's just one of those things’ following the premature birth and subsequent death of her son. And in a further case, a mother whose baby had been transferred to neonatal intensive care was placed on a ward with mothers and their newborn babies. When she asked to move because the crying was causing her distress, she was allegedly advised to buy earplugs from Asda, Mr McIntyre revealed. Lady Amos said her review found ‘medical misogyny across the system’ and warned that racism, discrimination and failures to listen to women must be treated as immediate threats to patient safety, rather than softer cultural concerns. 'How, in today's world and looking forward, we still have the scale of harm and bereavement that we do. I find extremely difficult to get my head around,’ she added. ‘I can't understand how England in 2026, with the resources we have at our disposal, that we have not managed to deal with this.’