MPs back Made in Chelsea star's calls for maternity comissioner in Parliamentary debate
It comes as senior midwife Donna Ockenden is set to chair a public inquiry into failures of maternity services in Leeds.
There has been “a vacuum of leadership and accountability” in maternity care, MPs said, as they backed calls from former Made In Chelsea star Louise Thompson for a maternity commissioner.
Ms Thompson, 36, nearly lost her life while delivering her son Leo in November 2021 and has subsequently suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Since then, she, alongside former Conservative MP Theo Clarke, launched a petition for a maternity commissioner.
The TV star said that “failing maternity services are a national scandal, ruining the health of mums and babies through a lack of basic care”, before adding that there needs to be accountability that “only a commissioner can provide”.
This petition was signed by some 153,000 leading to it being debated in Parliament yesterday.
“A failure of listening runs through every major maternity report of the last decade, alongside unsafe care and a toxic culture,” Tony Vaughan KC, the Folkestone and Hythe MP, who led the debate.
MPs heard that a third of mothers describe their birth as “traumatic”, while some 30,000 each year suffer from PTSD.
“The petition’s analysis is that there has been a vacuum of leadership and accountability across the system here, and I know that the Government is looking at how best to do that,” Mr Vaughan said.
It comes as senior midwife Donna Ockenden is set to chair a public inquiry into failures of maternity services in Leeds.
A BBC investigation into the scandal revealed the deaths of at least 56 babies and two mothers over the past five years may have been prevented, while legal firm Irwin Mitchell is representing more than 30 families in action against the trust.
Fiona Winser-Ramm is one of the bereaved parents who will take part in the public inquiry into Leeds maternity services.
Her daughter Aliona died less than half an hour after she was born in 2020, and the inquest found “a number of gross failures … directly contributed” to her death.
She told The Yorkshire Post previously: “We were in hospital, we believed we were in the safest place - and actually we were in the most dangerous of places.”