Jeremy Hunt (!) calls for an independent inquiry into maternity services

[RedToothBrush]

www.independent.co.uk/news/health/jeremy-hunt-nhs-maternity-patient-safety-health-select-committee-shrewsbury-telford-a9322021.html
Jeremy Hunt calls for national inquiry into NHS maternity safety after repeated scandals
Exclusive: In his first interview as new chair of select committee, former health secretary backs The Independent’s campaign to keep mothers and babies safe

Shaun Lintern
Breaking: @Jeremy_Hunt calls for national inquiry into NHS maternity safety after repeated scandals

"I think the case is becoming unanswerable for an independent inquiry into the safety of maternity care across the NHS ... I think it’s difficult to say there isn’t some kind of a pattern of problems" @Jeremy_Hunt tells @Independent

Mr Hunt said an inquiry should examine "whether the safety of mothers and babies...has been compromised in any part of the NHS, by a mistaken obsession with a particular ideology as to how births should take place"

As SOS Mr Hunt launched the aim to halve maternity deaths and injuries by 2025 and launched a series of safety interventions in maternity care. But he told me an inquiry would be able to "reassure the public" and say whether current work was "sufficient or we need to do more.”

Thats Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care 4 September 2012 – 9 July 2018, just in case you are thinking this is some guy who wasn't in charge of maternity services for the majority of the last decade.

And, iirc the stories correctly, it will be Jeremy Hunt who chairs any such enquiry.

As Hunt is chair of the influential Health and Social Care Select Committee he needs also to be calling for the inquiry into how children questioning their gender identity are being treated by the NHS. Especially as senior whistleblowers raised Safeguarding concerns a year ago.

though to quote Red "thats Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care 4 September 2012 – 9 July 2018"

And, iirc the stories correctly, it will be Jeremy Hunt who chairs any such enquiry.

No conflict of interest at all there then.

He's obviously going to report a failure of leadership at the very top if he sees one.

Magnificent.

I've been following this story for years now and whilst the idea of an independent inquiry is one I welcome, the Morecambe Bay inquiry made fuck all difference and with whose steering this I can't help but feel any such investigation is going to be a whitewash from beginning to end.

He could also take a look at how women's safety and privacy having given birth are compromised by allowing men to stay 24 / 7 on maternity wards without any appropriate resources. (again - all happened on this government's watch)

JH hates the NHS. He always tries to paint medics as the bad guys to further his political aims. So I don't think he will be impartial here as he has an existing agenda.

Surely an inquiry into what went wrong in maternity care is a good thing in principle?

I heard a radio interview with him last week in which he said that as health sec he had wanted to implement a no blame culture to allow staff to learn from errors and systems to change. Which is what staff have wanted for decades. The airline industry model is frequently cited as one health can learn from.

Hunt’s belated recognition that the legal process for families to obtain any compensation requires identification of blame, and is at odds with an investigation for learning model, at least shows that he now realises a different approach is required.

I’m hugely cynical about this, and wish Jeremy Hunt, the longest serving Health Sec had got around to finding a solution a lot sooner. But change is desperately needed and so despite my reservations, I hope this review leads to major improvements and less heartbreak.