Tag Archives: maternity services

Mark Valladares

11 September 2025 – today’s Federal press releases

By Mark Valladares | Thu 11th September 2025 - 10:30 pm
  • NHS waiting lists: Govt must tackle social care to end era of sky-high waiting lists
  • Davey on Mandelson sacking: Starmer must come before Parliament
  • NHS maternity payouts rise to £1.3bn as Ed Davey visits South West to discuss crisis
  • Farage stamp duty: Reform leader has “serious questions to answer”
  • Mandelson: PM must carry out full review of vetting procedures

NHS waiting lists: Govt must tackle social care to end era of sky-high waiting lists

Responding to the number of people on NHS waiting lists rising for the second month in a row to 7.4 million in July, Liberal Democrat Health and Social Care spokesperson Helen Morgan MP said:

The Government promised to go full throttle when it comes to cutting NHS waiting lists, instead they’ve gone into reverse.

The Conservatives brought the NHS to its knees, with patients often suffering tragic consequences, but far from bringing the change people are crying out for, this Labour government is just treading water.

Without fixing the underlying issues in our health service this situation will persist and patients will suffer. Only by urgently tackling the crisis in social care can we unclog the system and bring and end to this era of sky-high waiting lists.

Davey on Mandelson sacking: Starmer must come before Parliament

Responding to the news that Peter Mandelson has been sacked as the UK Ambassador to the United States, Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey said:

The Prime Minister now needs to appoint an ambassador who will stand up to Trump, not cosy up to him and his cronies.

He also needs to come before Parliament and explain why Lord Mandelson was appointed in the first place, given everything the Government knew then.

This Government seems to be lurching from one crisis to another. It desperately needs to get a grip on fixing the economy and public services so badly damaged by the Conservatives.

NHS maternity payouts rise to £1.3bn as Ed Davey visits South West to discuss crisis

NHS figures show that clinical negligence payouts for maternity rose to £1.3 billion last year, up 13% on 2023/24’s figure of £1.15 billion with total payouts hitting a record high in 2024/25.

It comes as Ed Davey visits the South West today (12th September) to discuss issues with local maternity services.

The 2024/25 NHS compensation figures found that maternity clinical negligence payouts had risen £150 million on the previous year to £1.3 billion, a 13% rise. Maternity clinical negligence payments account for 42% of all clinical negligence payments.

NHS clinical negligence payouts generally rose to a record £3.1 billion, up from £2.8 billion in 2023/24 which was also a record. It represents an 11% increase.

In April the Government announced cuts to the national Service Development Funding (SDF) for maternity services from £95m in 2024-25 to just £2m in 2025-26. The fund had been introduced following the Ockenden Review into maternity services at Shrewsbury and Telford to improve the quality of maternity care.

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Mark Valladares

14 May 2025 – today’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Wed 14th May 2025 - 10:30 pm
  • PAC medical negligence report: staggering sums lay bare a health service that is “not functioning”
  • Lib Dems call for a critical incident to be declared after unsafe maternity unit in Somerset forced to closed
  • Cole-Hamilton: Social care being doubly failed by Labour and SNP
  • Cole-Hamilton: Both governments neglecting social care

PAC medical negligence report: staggering sums lay bare a health service that is “not functioning”

Responding to the Public Accounts Committee report, which condemned the ‘astronomical’ fees paid to medical negligence lawyers, Liberal Democrat Hospitals and Primary Care spokesperson Jess Brown-Fuller MP said:

These sums are absolutely staggering and symptomatic of a health service that simply is not functioning, leading to frankly dangerous situations.

The Conservative Party’s shameful neglect brought us to this point, but the Labour government’s embrace of dither and delay on social care, maternity reforms and rebuilding our hospitals is prolonging the misery.

To turn this situation around, we need to see ministers move at speed by wrapping up their social care review by the end of the year, implementing the Ockenden report in full and rescuing our crumbling hospitals. To fail on this front condemns more patients to these horrific outcomes.

Lib Dems call for a critical incident to be declared after unsafe maternity unit in Somerset forced to closed

Maternity services in Yeovil are to close for at least six months after a warning from the Care Quality Commission (CQC), a situation that has prompted local Liberal Democrat MP Adam Dance to call for a critical incident to be declared warning that it will leave families in “turmoil”.

The Somerset NHS foundation trust has announced that it will be closing the Yeovil Maternity Unit for six months, including the Special Care Baby Unit. The unit serves more than 1,200 births a year.

These women will instead be sent to Taunton, a maternity unit over 25 miles away and already over capacity in Musgrove Park Hospital, one of the hospitals facing delays following the Government pushing back many projects in the New Hospitals Programme.

The step was taken after the CQC served a warning that maternity services were “failing to meet the regulations related to staffing and governance systems”. Yeovil MP Adam Dance asked a question about the closure at Prime Minister’s Questions today in which Keir Starmer committed to securing a meeting for the local MP with a relevant minister to discuss the issue.

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Mark Valladares

19 September 2024 – today’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Thu 19th September 2024 - 10:30 pm
  • Improving maternity care must be a key priority for the new government
  • Rennie responds to new Audit Scotland college report
  • Cole-Hamilton urges First Minister to act on antisocial driving
  • Cole-Hamilton attacks “vast” pay off to water industry boss

Improving maternity care must be a key priority for the new government

Responding to the Care Quality Commission’s report into maternity care services, Liberal Democrat Health and Social Care Spokesperson, Helen Morgan said:

The ongoing postcode lottery of maternity care must end. That means raising standards across the board and making sure that no mother or baby is put at unnecessary risk.

Unsafe staffing levels and practices can have tragic consequences, as so many families across the country have experienced first hand.

Despite several reviews and inquiries, this new CQC report makes clear that much more progress needs to be made.

Improving maternity care must be a key priority for the new government as it seeks to address the broader crisis in our healthcare system.

Rennie responds to new Audit Scotland college report

Responding to a new Audit Scotland report which warns that colleges may not be able to offer the same learning experience to students as in the past and that further staff cuts are on the horizon, Scottish Liberal Democrat education spokesperson Willie Rennie said:

College budgets have been first in line for the axe for years now. Figures from the Scottish Funding Council show that the SNP cut resource funding for colleges by 4.8% in the 2024-25 budget, hot on the heels of a real-terms reduction in funding of 8.5% over the previous two financial years.

The SNP’s neglect of further education has contributed to our wider economic malaise and it makes clear that ministers do not see colleges, their staff and students as a priority.

Colleges have a key role to play in providing people with the skills they need to flourish in key sectors like insulating homes, food and drink, tourism, social care and nursery education.

Scotland won’t reach its economic potential without a thriving college sector.

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Mark Valladares

13 May 2024 – today’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Mon 13th May 2024 - 9:00 pm
  • Bathing water: Govt needs to go further and stop sewage being pumped into bathing water sites
  • Maternity Care: Time Govt end postcode lottery
  • PM speech: Sunak should listen to the public and call a General Election
  • McArthur comments as legal action launched over deposit return scheme losses

Bathing water: Govt needs to go further and stop sewage being pumped into bathing water sites

Responding to the government announcing new designated bathing water sites, Liberal Democrat Environment spokesperson Tim Farron MP said:

The government needs to go much further and stop sewage being pumped into bathing water sites. Conservative Ministers allowed disgraced water firms to spill sewage into these sites over 30,000 times last year. No swimmer should have to fear raw sewage making them sick.

Today the Liberal Democrats have tabled an amendment to make water companies criminally liable for their sewage pollution. I am urging MPs from all parties to back this and finally get tough on these firms.

Maternity Care: Time Govt end postcode lottery

Commenting on the the Birth Trauma Inquiry, Liberal Democrat MP and Co-Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Baby Loss, Helen Morgan MP said:

This inquiry has exposed what many of us have long feared about the state of the country’s maternity services.

For so many women to have such traumatic experiences of birth is nothing short of a national tragedy. Too many are being failed in pregnancy, birth and aftercare as this report shows.

It’s time the Government took action to end the postcode lottery in maternity services. I urge them to accept the report in full.

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Caron Lindsay

Channel 4 highlights human rights concerns of Caithness women facing 2.5 hour journey to give birth

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 23rd November 2023 - 6:53 am

The A9 from Wick and Thurso to Inverness is a long road, even at the best of times.

I’ve travelled it in all weathers. In the Summer of 1980 as my parents went to the Royal Garden Party at the Palace of Holyroodhouse. In the depths of an icy 1984 Winter to my Grandma’s funeral in Inverness.

Even though they have made the hairpin bend on the Berriedale Braes a bit easier and the Dornoch Bridge has cut off a good half hour from the journey, it’s still a long and twisty road.

Definitely not one you would want to be driving along in any stage of labour.

I had to travel about 12 miles by car in the early stages of labour and I can promise you not one bit of that was pleasant. I could not contemplate the thought of setting off from Wick to Inverness at a windy 4 am. And let me tell you the wind in Caithness is a special thing, a lazy wind as an elderly friend of the family used to call it because it went right through you rather than go round you.

But that’s exactly what women in Caithness have had to face ever since the maternity unit at Caithness General Hospital in Wick was downgraded to midwife led in 2016. The alternative to the long drive in labour is being sent to Raigmore to be induced 2 weeks before your due date. And of course induction leads to more intervention than might have been necessary. Imagine the return trip when you’ve just had a caesarean section or a lot of stitches. If you are not wincing at that thought, I have no words.

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Bernie Bentick

Ockenden Maternity Review: A view from the front line in Shropshire

By Bernie Bentick | Wed 30th March 2022 - 7:32 am

The Ockenden Report, to be published this morning, was commissioned by Jeremy Hunt in 2017 after the parents of babies who died in the care of Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Hospital Trust (SATH) were distraught about the uncaring response of staff to their bereavement. Concerns were also raised about the numbers of preventable baby deaths.

The report of the Ockenden maternity review, which investigated 1,862 cases, will add to several recent reports detailing catastrophic failures within other NHS Trusts. This article sets out the wider context for the failures at SaTH and makes recommendations for improvements to the way that care and safeguarding is managed across the NHS.

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Rebecca Hanson

In praise of being a by-election candidate

By Rebecca Hanson | Fri 29th June 2018 - 11:55 am

It’s 18 months since Jamie Reed resigned as the MP for Copeland, forcing a very unexpected by-election.

I’d never intended standing for parliament.  I was very content running my own business and being a local (lowest level – unpaid) Councillor, campaigning on a local issue I was passionate about (keeping our maternity services).

Copeland was not a winnable seat (we had no Lib Dem councillors there and all the Lib Dems were in Stoke fighting Nuttall) but by-elections command a lot of party and media attention, so being the candidate gave me the chance to do many things I couldn’t have done in an unwinnable seat in a general election for example:

– Copeland contains Sellafield – the hub of the nuclear industry.  Our nuclear experts were very worried about the consequences of the UK pulling out of the Euratom agreement as part of Brexit.  Lord Teverson and Baroness Featherstone helped me get this issue rapidly on the Westminster agenda.  Because I was raising it in Copeland, the main party candidates had to know about it so their parties had to help them and this issue quickly gained cross party attention.

– I was also very concerned about a particularly toxic academy issue we faced.  The other candidates didn’t properly understand it but by raising it again and again and explaining it in depth at hustings I was able to make sure they did.  To her credit, Trudy Harrison (the elected Conservative MP) has got herself onto the Education Select Committee and is working hard on this issue.

– I was able to drive forward my work on our maternity issues with the help of Norman Lamb, Baroness Brinton and the local media.

 – I was able to be a role model for the kind of evidence-based inclusive democracy I believe in, for example I was able to set up hustings in areas that felt neglected.

I got high level training on working with the media and plenty of experience.  I got the support of very experienced politicians and my fantastic agent Andy Sanger and so was able to learn a great deal very quickly.

The credibility I gained during the by-election meant that I was elected to Cumbria County Council last May.  From there I’ve been able to continue to protect maternity services and I’ve been able to have a positive impact on more issues than I can count.  

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