Letters highlight prejudice, misogyny, and leadership failures in UK maternity care
8 reported
A series of letters published in The Guardian on June 29, 2026, respond to recent reports on maternity care failures in the UK, including the Ockenden review on Nottingham maternity services. The letters, from academics, clinicians, and former regulators, point to gender-based prejudices, racial stereotypes, and ineffective leadership as factors that lead to women being ignored or dismissed during maternity care. The writers also highlight chronic understaffing, a culture of fear that inhibits whistleblowing, and the refusal of many executives and commissioners to participate in investigations. They call for systemic changes, including making senior managers personally criminally liable for allowing toxic environments and implementing a learning healthcare system that values women’s voices.
What’s reported
Research by Prof Sarah Devaney, Dr Victoria Moore, Prof Alexandra Mullock, and Dr Laura O’Donovan identifies that women’s accounts are given less credibility due to prejudices.
Gender-based prejudices lead to women being perceived as anxious, hysterical, or irrational, and their symptoms dismissed as psychological.
Racial stereotypes compound this bias, including beliefs that women from particular ethnic groups have higher or lower pain tolerance, leading to inaccurate pain relief in labour.
Over half of 66 executives and 10 out of 14 commissioners refused to take part in the investigation into Nottingham maternity care.
The Ockenden review found “a culture of fear where junior staff were too intimidated to escalate clinical concerns or challenge unsafe decisions.”
A February report highlighted “inadequate staffing and resources at every level of maternity care,” yet 31% of midwifery graduates are unable to find jobs.
The Ockenden report also reports “chronic understaffing … where midwives and doctors were overstretched, exhausted and unable to respond promptly to requests for help.”
More than 500 mothers and babies died or were harmed at the Nottingham NHS trust, according to a June 24 report.
Key figures
Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett (journalist, referenced in letters)
Prof Sarah Devaney (University of Manchester)
Dr Victoria Moore (University of Manchester)
Prof Alexandra Mullock (University of Manchester)
Dr Laura O’Donovan (University of Sheffield)
Lorin Lakasing (Consultant in obstetrics and foetal medicine, London)
David Lewis (London)
Simon Gillespie (Former NHS regulator, Cheshire)
Dr M Tariq Ali (Oxford)
Sources: The Guardian
