There is no perfect data set when it comes to considering maternity mortality in any of the Unions' four nations. But when you look more widely you realise even the United Nations Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UN IGME) struggles to get the most accurate data from which to learn.
UN IGME was formed in 2004 to share data on child mortality, improve methods for child mortality estimation, report on progress towards child survival goals, and enhance country capacity to produce timely and properly assessed estimates of child mortality.
It looks more widely than maternity, neonatal and perinatal mortality, but it is a startlingly enlightening tool allowing you to see how far the United Kingdom has come...and how much more we could be doing in Britain for our own babies, and to share and support best practice globally.
This is why we must advance our ambitions for the national maternity inquiry to create more than just comprehensive understanding. A UK-wide, publicly scrutinised, expert led inquiry is part one. Part two is using the learning to create a future proofed plan for the next decade and beyond, aligning with early years health and social care services - to create a step change in terms of childhood survival rates and childhoods that thrive.
Mothers’ and babies’ lives are being harmed or lost avoidably for the same reasons in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland as they are in England. An England only inquiry, led by lawyers, which others are latterly asking for, would mean unilateralism could impact life and death healthcare decisions in Wales, Scotland & Northern Ireland.
An ambitious precedent exists for devolved administrations’ health service leaders to work together already. And the aim of the inquiry needs to be equally as ambitious with the deliverables including a future proofed plan for maternity services that will evolve to keep up as healthcare needs change, be conjoined with early years services and deliver for today’s children when they become parents.
We are now in correspondence with the healthcare administrations in each of the United Kingdom's four nations. We will update you when we hear back from them.
Our most sincere thanks to every single supporter of this petition and its stated ambitions.
Rhiannon, Richard, Kayleigh and Colin.