SNP must get their act together over Scotland's 'deteriorating' maternity services

This time last year a report commissioned by NHS Lothian found mothers and newborn babies had come to harm because of staffing shortages and a “toxic” culture at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary’s maternity unit. A total of 17 separate safety concerns were identified in the report, published three months after the death of a mother.

Another report in May detailed patient safety concerns at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee. And campaigners for better maternity services in Caithness, where mothers in Wick can face a 110-mile trip to Inverness to give birth, recently described the lack of action to address the situation by the Scottish Government as a “slap in the face” for families.

Scottish Labour health spokesperson Jackie Baillie has written about what this can mean for mothers. She described how women in labour but not ready to give birth were being told to go home by hospital staff, but because of the long distance, ended up wandering the streets of Inverness, sometimes at night.

Now it has emerged that a Scottish Government official, John Harden, the national clinical lead for quality and safety, warned in October that “maternity and neonatal services present a flat or deteriorating picture, with a continued increase in C-section rates and associated complications”. In other words, things are getting worse.

The Royal College of Midwives said staff were “working tirelessly in extremely challenging conditions but staffing levels mean services are stretched too thin” and called for “concrete action”, including “proper investment in maternity services”.

Labour MP Joani Reid described Harden’s comments as an admission that maternity services were “unsafe”, which the Scottish Government disputes. However, Reid was right to ask: “Where is the ministerial statement on the dangerous state of maternity services, where is the plan to fix this?”

The government has set up a ‘Scottish Maternity and Neonatal Taskforce’ and it is currently looking at the scope of a “national review”. Given how bad things were more than a year ago, we suggest they do so quickly.

However, ministers must not simply content themselves with setting up a taskforce to look at a review. They have a duty to fix any problems they can. If the review delivers other helpful suggestions so much the better, but action is needed now.