In December 2024 Baby Lifeline submitted evidence to Change NHS, a national opportunity to contribute ideas for the 10-Year Health Plan. Change NHS was launched by Rt Hon Wes Streeting, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and Amanda Pritchard, Chief Executive of NHS England.
Our submission represented Baby Lifeline’s mission and priorities as a charity and included the views of our advisory panels: our Multi-Professional Advisory Panel (which consists of maternity and neonatal experts such as midwives, obstetricians, anaesthetists, paramedics, neonatologists, GPs, medical negligence lawyers and systems experts) and our Family Voices Group (which is made up of people with lived experience of maternity care).
Change NHS asked for views on various aspects of the NHS including priorities that should be included in the 10-Year Health Plan, challenges and enablers for moving more care into the community, use of technology, tackling the causes of ill health, and ideas for policy change.
We suggested five key priorities:
- Maternity and neonatal services must be prioritised in the 10-Year Health Plan. Wes Streeting recently stated that maternity services in the UK are “one of the biggest issues that keeps [him] awake at night,” and yet maternity services are often left out of discussions about improvements to the NHS. This must be rectified in the 10 Year Health Plan. The 10-Year Health Plan must address the leading causes of avoidable harm in maternity and neonatal services through immediate upfront investment, robust staff training and improved hospital facilities and resources. It needs to take a holistic approach to healthcare by working in collaboration with public health, sexual health and social care.
- Budgets need to be increased to see positive change. The government must be prepared to fund services upfront in order to save money in the long run. Each year, the value of obstetric clinical negligence claims received by NHS Resolution is greater than the combined cost of delivering every baby in England and providing all antenatal scans and procedures. If we were to prevent just a few of these deaths and injuries, the NHS would have a lot more money to invest in maternity and neonatal services in future, and families and staff would not have to face devastating outcomes.
- Resources, training and hospital facilities – the fundamentals – must be improved so that staff can deliver essential care and feel valued. Staff and systems must be invested in properly and proactively, so that solutions can be implemented effectively with proper training. Encouraging healthcare professionals to work collaboratively is a key component of this, as is a recognition and understanding that the NHS must treat staff respectfully in order to retain them.
Our own research, Mind the Gap, showed that one of the biggest barriers to providing and attending important training for health professionals was resource- and funding-based. In addition, in a survey by Baby Lifeline to health professionals working in the NHS, over two- thirds of professionals surveyed told us that they had worked in units where vital equipment was either unavailable or broken when they needed to use it.
Our panels collectively shared that there was a need to improve systems to allow for effective communication between specialities and care providers (for example, between maternity teams and GPs). This would allow for a more joined-up and multi-professional approach to providing care for women and birthing people during their maternity journey.
- The national health service needs to be standardised with regard to its best practice and guidance to remove the postcode lottery and improve care for everyone.
We know that there are many examples of excellent maternity and neonatal care happening across the UK, and that staff work incredibly hard to provide quality care to families. Nevertheless, we know that there are many opportunities for improvement, so we sincerely hope that our ideas and suggestions are taken into account as the 10-Year Health Plan is developed.