UKIP anger over maternity blunders

Louise Bours, North West UKIP MEP

UKIP health spokesman Louise Bours has reacted with anger at shock figures revealing at least 340 blunders occur every day on NHS maternity wards.

A major review into the safety of maternity services is being published today by the NHS aiming to ensure mistakes do not happen again.

“I appreciate that most mistakes are classed as ‘near misses’ or low injury but alarmingly 151 women and newborns died last year with another 351 suffering severe harm,” said Ms Bours, North West MEP.

“What has happened to the extra midwives that David Cameron promised? Instead of spending time and money trying to keep this country in the failing EU he should be devoting more time to ensuring the NHS gets the resources it so desperately needs.

“It is outrageous that in this day and age women and their babies are needlessly dying or being injured in maternity units. We are not a third world country and this should not be happening.

“And of course the pressure on services has increased enormously, and is still increasing, because of uncontrolled immigration,” she said.

Figures from NHS England show that 124,143 safety incidents were reported by NHS hospital maternity units last year, a number which has increased by four per cent on the previous year when 119,561 were reported.