The MPs’ investigation into the maternity care scandal is welcome but overdue

Editorial: A select committee chaired by Jeremy Hunt is the right vehicle for a relatively swift but thorough response

The former health secretary has produced excellent service during the pandemic (EPA)

After a series of almost unbelievably harrowing stories about failures in maternity care, MPs are at last going to launch an investigation. Overdue as it is, it must be welcomed and it must lead to action – more resources, revised procedures and the whole culture of some maternity care units has to change. The shortcomings have caused lethal harm.

The inquiry should be in good hands. Jeremy Hunt, former health and social care secretary, will lead his select committee’s questioning of those responsible. That will include clinicians and hospital management as well as central bodies in the NHS and the Care Quality Commission.

Mr Hunt, politically responsible for the health service in England from 2012 to 2018, is well placed to ask the right people the right questions, including of his successor Matt Hancock. Indeed, Mr Hunt witnessed some of the particular problems in maternity care emerge during his own time in office and ordered a report on failings at Morecambe Bay and at Shrewsbury. In such cases and perhaps others not yet public, Mr Hunt may have to, in effect, declare an interest.

Even so, the select committee is the right vehicle for a relatively swift but thorough response. An internal inquiry by the NHS or by a quango might obviously be compromised; a judge-led one would take too long and be disproportionate. The facts of what happened are not disputed in Morecambe Bay, in Shrewsbury and Telford, in East Kent and elsewhere.

Recently, some £37m was awarded by the Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust to the parents of a brain-damaged child, in one of the largest maternity negligence claims. The pressing questions are around why it happened so catastrophically in certain places.

The select committee’s work may be of some comfort to families seeking justice, and should help prevent such failures of care in future. It is a vindication of all those who’ve blown the whistle, and of The Independent’s campaigning and Shaun Lintern’s exemplary journalism; the select committee should also join families and medical professionals in recommending the reinstatement of the national training fund for maternity units.

The Health and Social Care Committee under Mr Hunt, like the Science and Technology Committee chaired by Greg Clark, has rendered excellent service during the Covid-19 pandemic. Mr Hunt knows what needs to be done, better than most.

If Britain had the same neonatal death rate as Sweden, a thousand fewer babies would die each year. Too many mothers and infants have lost their lives needlessly. There should be no more delays and no more blame dodging.