Select committee: Health and Social Care Committee
Conclusion 17
Fourth Report - The safety of maternity services in England
Published 6 Jul 2021
Paragraph 101
Addressed to Department of Health and Social Care
Health and Social Care Committee Safety of maternity services in England All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
It is clear to us that in its current form the clinical negligence process is failing to meet its objectives for both families and the healthcare system. Too often families are not provided with the appropriate, timely and compassionate support they deserve. For those delivering maternity care, the adversarial nature of litigation promotes a culture of blame instead of learning after a patient safety incident. Alternative approaches are already in place in other countries where the use of a threshold of ‘avoidability’ rather than ‘negligence’ to award compensation has helped to tackle the debilitating culture of blame, accelerate learning and provide timely support to patients and their families. We believe that adopting such an approach is an essential next step in shifting the culture in maternity services away from blame to one of learning.
From: Health and Social Care Committee, Fourth Report - The safety of maternity services in England (HC 19), paragraph 101, 6 July 2021
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 21 September 2021 (deadline 6 September 2021).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The Government welcomes the Committee's report and responds to each of its 15 recommendations, accepting some in full or in part, rejecting one and stating that it is considering others.
- On the recommended £200-350m a year funding increase, the Government says it "is considering this recommendation" and will take the recommendations on funding for staffing "into consideration", alongside an assessment of midwifery and obstetric workforce levels.
- It "accepts" the recommendations on obstetric training posts, safety training targets, and training for Continuity of Carer, while accepting others only "in part", including ringfenced training budgets and a disparity target.
- It rejects the Rapid Redress and Resolution Scheme, stating it "does not intend to put in place" the scheme, and that the scheme "did not address the high and rising cost of clinical negligence cases".
- On litigation reform and compensation, the Government says it will publish a consultation, and "Decisions on next steps will be taken following the consultation".