Leeds maternity campaigners are to be praised as Donna Ockenden is named chair of inquiry
The appointment of Donna Ockenden as chair for the Leeds Maternity and Neonatal Independent Review is to be welcomed. It is a credit to the campaigning of bereaved families in securing the appointment of the highly-respected senior midwife.
The families should never have had to fight this hard for what was a straightforward request, given Ms Ockenden herself said she stood ready to chair the inquiry. They should never have had to endure the long drawn out process that setting this inquiry has become.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting now must work at pace to ensure the full terms of reference for the review are agreed.
The review, which will provisionally look at harm caused between January 1, 2011, and December 1, 2025, is right to operate on an opt-out basis, meaning cases will automatically be included unless families choose otherwise. It is also good to see that families have been assured that experiences of harm occurring before 2011 will still be able to be considered on an opt-in basis.
No stone must be left unturned. Bereaved families deserve answers over the maternity failings in Leeds. Not only that, they need to know that lessons will be learnt so that no one else ever has to go through the suffering that they have experienced.
As bereaved mother Amarjit Matharoo points out, the mothers and babies who have died or been harmed in the care of trusts in Sussex “deserve the same amount of consideration as those in Leeds”,
This is not a witch hunt but about providing closure to the families and restoring trust in maternity and neonatal services at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.
Neighbouring maternity units could be at risk of being overwhelmed because expectant mothers are turning away from Leeds.