Baroness Amos was selected by Health Secretary Wes Streeting after bereaved families expressed a preference for someone with distance from the NHS who is able to bring a fresh pair of eyes to the role, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said.
Mr Streeting has been meeting bereaved and harmed families who have been let down by maternity and neonatal services across the country, including in some of the worst affected trusts, DHSC added.
In June, he announced that a national investigation into “systemic” failures in NHS maternity care had been launched by the government after families were “gaslit” in their search for the truth.
Mr Streeting said he would be ordering an investigation into nine specific cases identified by families in Sussex “who are owed a thorough account of what happened in those cases”.
The Department of Health and Social Care confirmed the nine cases regard University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust.
Katie Fowler and Rob Miller from Hove were among those to meet with Mr Streeting in London last year.
The couple, who called for an independent review into maternity failings within the University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust, discussed their daughter Abigail’s care after she died two days after an emergency c-section at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton.
An inquest found that Abigail’s life would have been “significantly prolonged” if not for failings in her mother’s maternity care at the Royal Sussex.
Katie Fowler and Rob Miller met Health Secretary Wes Streeting (Image: Slater Gordon) Baroness Amos is master of University College, Oxford, and was a UK government minister and a senior official at the United Nations.
Mr Streeting said: “I have been appalled by the many harrowing stories I’ve heard from mothers and fathers let down by the NHS.
“Families asked for fresh eyes, independence and compassion – and that’s why I’ve appointed Baroness Amos. Valerie has an outstanding record of leadership and driving change, nationally and internationally. She will work closely with families to uncover the truth, confront problems and drive the improvements needed so every woman and baby receives safe, high-quality care.
“Through our Plan for Change, we will rebuild the NHS to ensure no family suffers like this again.”
Baroness Amos said: “I will carry the weight of the loss suffered by families with me throughout this investigation. I hope that we will be able to provide the answers that families are seeking and support the NHS in identifying areas of care requiring urgent reform.”
The investigation will look at up to ten services in the country. It will also review the maternity and neonatal system, bringing together the findings of past reviews into one national set of actions, the DHSC said.
It will begin work this summer and produce an initial set of national recommendations by December.
The ten maternity and neonatal units will be decided by Baroness Amos and her team, alongside the terms of reference of the investigation, which are being developed with families who have experiences of maternity and neonatal care, including in Leeds, Sussex and Nottingham, the DHSC added.
The investigation is separate from the National Maternity and Neonatal Taskforce, which will be made up of a panel of experts and families, and chaired by Mr Streeting.
Gill Walton, chief executive of the RCM, said: “We are pleased to hear of the appointment of Baroness Amos as chair of the rapid review. She has a reputation for taking a thoughtful and strategic approach and we welcome her fresh insight into maternity and neonatal safety.
“It is absolutely vital, though, that this review gets under way quickly. When he announced it in June, we welcomed Wes Streeting’s commitment to publishing the review by Christmas, a promise he repeated at the Progress in Partnership summit on maternity and neonatal safety last month.
“However, we are already halfway through August, with no terms of reference, no sense of the trusts who are likely to be part of the review or no clarity on how the review will be conducted.
“Every woman and family should leave maternity and neonatal services whole, happy and healthy, and every member of maternity staff should start and end their shift knowing they have provided safe, good-quality care.
“At the moment, that simply isn’t the case. Previous reviews and countless Care Quality Commission reports have flagged the same the systemic failings that are at the heart of the issues facing maternity and neonatal care issues time and time again: unsafe staffing, poor workplace cultures, and not listening to women.
“In spite of that, there has been no forward movement. Wes Streeting promised to change that. Thousands of midwives and maternity support workers, and the whole of the maternity community, are desperate for him to keep that promise and deliver the change we all want to see.”
The RCM has also urged the review to look at examples of good maternity care, as well as where services are not meeting standards of care.
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