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Enhancing Public Accountability: Key Elements of the Public Office (Accountability) Bill 2025
Kirsty Cook
Immediate action to improve maternity care in the UK is undoubtedly needed and this week the Government has announced the launch of a pilot programme to help reduce avoidable brain injuries in childbirth.
The scheme involves helping ‘maternity staff better identify and act quickly when babies are in distress during labour’ and will initially be taking place across nine maternity units. The Government states that the scheme is expected to reduce the rising cost of clinical negligence claims.
Acting quickly is absolutely vital. As a specialist birth injury solicitor, I represent the families of babies affected by catastrophic brain injuries leading to conditions such as Cerebral Palsy, where there have been failures in the management of the babies’ delivery. These include not recognising signs of deterioration or avoidable delays. If a baby’s oxygen supply is compromised, then a delay in delivery can have a devastating impact - every minute of compromised oxygen may cause more brain damage.
Part of the Avoiding Brain Injury in Childbirth (ABC) pilot will involve helping staff to deal with obstetric emergencies that occur where a baby’s head becomes lodged deep in the mother’s pelvis during a caesarean birth (known as impacted fetal head – IFH). This can cause difficulty in delivery of the baby’s head, posing significant risks to both mother and baby. More information about IFH can be found in a blog by my colleague Aideen McGarry (here) where she discusses the challenges in this field and the need for a consensus on correct practice.
The overall aim of the ABC programme is ‘to improve clinical practice, communication and care for women and families and result in better outcomes and experiences, while reducing variation and inequality of care’. These outcomes are clearly imperative in order to prevent unnecessary profound harm to babies. Inequalities within maternity care have been increasingly brought to light recently - including within reports by the NHS Race and Health Observatory (which I discuss here), MBRRACE-UK (Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries), and last month by the Care Quality Commission (discussed by my colleague Andrea Wadden here).
The ABC programme is said to reflect the importance of listening, inclusion and respect as part of keeping those in labour and their babies safe. From the work I have done in this area as a clinical negligence lawyer, I believe the importance of communication between medical staff, patients and their families cannot be overstated. Many clients have explained to me how terrifying their experiences have been through not properly understanding what was happening to them or their options and not feeling that they were properly listened to when raising concerns. Ultimately, their babies suffered catastrophic injuries.
Ensuring that maternity staff have the training and resources to respond effectively when there is an emergency must be at the core of reducing the risk of such injuries. However, communication and learning from adverse incidents are also key.
I am encouraged that reducing the rates of brain injuries during childbirth is being prioritised in this way and hope that the ABC pilot is a success and can be rolled out nationally next year, as has been suggested by the Department for Health and Social Care.
Further information
If you have any questions regarding this blog, please contact Kirsty Allen in our Medical Negligence and Personal Injury team.
About the author
Kirsty Allen is a highly experienced medical negligence solicitor who undertakes a wide variety of cases with particular specialisms in child cerebral palsy and adult brain injury cases, fatal claims, loss of sight cases, as well as failure to diagnose cancer and gynaecological claims.
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