Is anyone happy with the latest maternity safety report, published by Baroness Amos today? The former UN diplomat says the standard of care that she has found so far in the NHS has been ‘much worse’ than she’d anticipated. This is quite striking, given the appalling findings of the many reviews that have already taken place into failings in maternity units across England. You might expect this review to merely have confirmed what has already been uncovered.

From grooming gangs to maternity safety to unsafe housing, the intrays of Whitehall are groaning under ‘recommendations’

But many campaigners have responded to Amos’s interim report with a weariness and frustration. Victims of poor NHS care, many of whom are bereaved, are annoyed that there is another ‘rapid’ review rather than the public inquiry that many have been calling for.

Other investigators, such as Donna Ockenden, who conducted the inquiry into care at Shrewsbury and Telford and who is now leading a review of failings in Nottingham, are annoyed that their own recommendations to prevent future failings are continuing to gather dust.

The Royal College of Midwives, which has had to answer many difficult questions........

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