Despite many attributing it to Einstein, it was more likely to have been the civil rights campaigner Rita Mae Brown who coined the phrase “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”  

Whoever said it first, I’m borrowing it!

After Kayleigh, Colin, Richard and I launched our campaign in September 2023 for a review into maternity services in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and England, (a review that will create the learning required to redesign maternity services, in alignment with early years’ services, to create a step change in terms of childhood survival rates and childhoods that thrive…for the next generation and beyond) others launched a campaign in October.

They are campaigning for an England-only review.
But there has already been an England only national maternity review.
In 2015.
Led by Julia Cumberlage.
It did not lead to positive change.

So, why will doing the same thing all over again result in a different outcome?

You do the same thing – you will get the same outcome – i.e., no required change; a deteriorating safety picture.  All whilst presumably leaving families in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to their sorry fate?

The 'insanity' doesn’t stop there however.

There will be a debate in the House the Lords on Thursday.
Which will look at maternity services.
In England-only.  
Julia Cumberledge (see above) is listed to speak.

Her national review into maternity failed to reverse the failing state of maternity in England…

So why would the Lords conceivably want to debate doing the same thing all over again?

Why do they seemingly not possess the ambition to create change?
If you don’t possess it, walk away.  
You’re distracting and you’re wasting time and lives are being avoidably lost.

Change must happen and it must happen at pace.

The latest figures AGAIN show an increase in maternity and maternal death rates.  Not only are death rates increasing, but the raft of recommendations and the additional funding are not getting to the heart of issues.  Despite the platitude spouted by the Department of Health and Social Care waaaaaay back in 2017 (that the government still hides behind) that “the NHS is one of the safest places in the world to give birth” the mounting evidence is directly to the contrary.

Donna Ockenden wrote the truth in her report into the Trust where our daughters died: “childbirth is not safe for women...” – right across the UK.  

Robust action is required immediately.  Rather than ongoing, disconnected and disjointed clinical and criminal investigations into hospital trusts across the country, we believe a public inquiry into maternity services is the only way we can get to the root of all issues and create required change in England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.

We have written to Steve Barclay, Victoria Atkins, Kier Starmer, Jeremy Hunt, Wes Streeting, Amanda Pritchard, Stephen Powis, Ruth May, Dale Bywater, Ian Trenholm, Jesse Norman, Helen Morgan, Peter May, Michael McBride, Eluned Morgan, Michael Matheson and Jenni Minto.  We have also sought to align our ambition with the work of the Royal Foundation of the Prince and Princess of Wales by writing to HRH The Princess of Wales at the end of last year.

As we’ve written about on here already, we have taken a small step forward with the CQC’s CEO Ian Trenholm agreeing to discuss the formation of an alliance between regulators.  Beyond that we are deeply frustrated to advise that we have only received a brush aside from Maria Caulfield, to whom we did not write, and false assurance from some bloke in Northern Ireland!

When we asked our respective MPs to ask the SoS for Health to respond directly to our letter, only Kayleigh and Colin’s did so.  She too received a response from Maria Caulfield, which she forwarded on to us today – it is a copy, paste, exact carbon copy of that which Ms Caulfield sent to us last year.  

This is disrespectful, patronising, ignorant and really bloody stupid.  
Does she think we accept false assurances?    

Kayleigh and Colin’s MP forwarded the letter with a note suggesting perhaps we don’t bother with our campaign – at least, not until after the Nottingham review is completed…which isn’t due to complete any time before Q4 2025...

We don’t sit around waiting, because a lack of listening and a lack action by those who could have created positive change is exactly why we are bereaved. 

If the CQC had correctly regulated and rated the hospital where our daughters died instead of taking false assurance:

If the hospital had ensured their midwives’ training was up to date, had implemented and followed NICE guidelines, had implemented and followed ANY safety guidelines:

If those we raised concerns to about Kate’s and Pippa’s well-being had listened and taken action…

Suffice to say the list of failings by so many failures is long.  

But the impact on our lives is lifelong.

So no, we won’t sit and wait.

And no, we won’t ever accept that repeating ineffective actions will result in a different outcome.

We began by asking for a national inquiry into maternity services in September 2023.  We have since advanced our ambitions and now believe they align with and underpin the Labour Party’s own recently published ambitions for our nation’s children.  Which is why we contacted Sir Keir Starmer directly last week and asked to work with the Labour Party.  Not because we want to get political, but because their pledge to place children’s health and wellbeing on their manifesto needs to start with an understanding of what needs to change - i.e., a national inquiry.

The national inquiry must deliver more than just comprehensive understanding.  A UK-wide, publicly scrutinised, expert led inquiry is just part one.  Part two is using the learning the inquiry will deliver 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 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.  

Our daughters Kate and Pippa lost their lives avoidably.  Kate is survived by 11-year-old Isabella: Brooke and Sonny are Pippa’s surviving siblings aged 12 and 6 respectively.  We have to do better for them…and their peers.

Over 29,600 of you agree with us and have signed our petition in support of the foregoing.  Thank you.  

If all four nations work together, time can be saved, ideas can be shared, learning can be identified, and change can happen more quickly.  Instead of ignoring what we have evidenced in our correspondence with them all, and continuing to exist under a rock of assumption that sufficient positive headway is being made, if all those we have written to (i.e., the politicians responsible for healthcare in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and England) give their support, it won’t take 100 years to make progress and effect change.

We need them to say ‘yes, we can do this’ then we can turn the appalling, failing state of maternity and early years’ service provision around in less than a generation. 

We will keep working together until we have moved the mountain – everyone else can carry on doing the same thing and hoping for a different outcome.

Thank you for your support - please share our petition if you are able...and if any of you have a direct line for Sir Keir, let us know!

Rhiannon, Richard, Kayleigh and Colin.