10,000 signatures - what a milestone. 

Kayleigh, Rich, Colin and I thank each and every one of you for your support.

This week, we have written back to Ian Trenholm, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) boss, who rejected our evidence and rebuffed our criticism of the many gross inconsistencies and concerning errors we have identified across the focussed maternity inspections they have completed to date.

The focussed maternity inspection programme only began in August 2022 (following Ockenden) - and yet, you may have seen news headlines about how  they have identified that 67% of maternity services in England are substandard.  

How did maternity departments suddenly get so dangerous without anybody knowing?  Well, the CQC is the inspectorate that should have identified concerns and acted upon them way, way, way before now. 

The headline isn't that services are now suddenly unsafe, rather, they will have  been unsafe for years and the CQC has only just now started looking underneath stones. 

This was at the epicentre of issues at SaTH.

Ockenden showed 201 babies could have been saved at SaTH over the period of the review.  201 babies!  Systematic failures that were not picked up by anyone with oversight of services (i.e., the CQC).  We reminded Mr. Trenholm that this would still be continuing had we not uncovered this and had we not sat down with the CQC to force them to look at SaTH. 

Of all the institutions and organisations we four have dealt with down the years, the CQC is the most impenetrable.  Letters, emails and phone calls have gone unanswered time and again.  We had to fight so hard to get them to meet us.  And still they are so dismissive of our evidence based concerns that they become defensive.  Hardly an appropriate response. 

So again, we have re-presented the evidence, with fresh examples, and called out the sweeping statement that was meant to brush us off.  That statement was: "the problems you have raised will be rectified when we begin working with our new regulatory model."  The trouble is, at a recent CQC webinar where the new framework was discussed, it was clear attendees who will be subject to the regulation share concerns that the new framework won't resolve any issues.

As for hearing anything back from those in charge of healthcare in each of Britain's four nations about the call for a national inquiry into maternity services ... the silence continues to be deafening.  Which is why we are so grateful for the signatures and the support.  Don't worry, we won't give up!