Jeremy Hunt calls for national inquiry into NHS maternity safety after repeated scandals

Sign up for our free Health Check email to receive exclusive analysis on the week in health Get our free Health Check email Get our free Health Check email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Mr Hunt, who was Britain’s longest serving health secretary, told The Independent: “I think the case is becoming unanswerable for an independent inquiry into the safety of maternity care across the NHS. Mr Hunt, who challenged Boris Johnson for the leadership of the Tory party, added: “It may well be that what the NHS is doing at the moment is sufficient, but it might not be and I think we need to look at this, independently, to reassure the public and say what is being done is sufficient or we need to do more.” The former foreign secretary said the issue of hospitals pursuing a “normal birth” ideology and waiting too long to perform caesarean sections was a “hotly debated topic” – and another reason for an inquiry to examine “whether the safety of mothers and babies, which is the priority for the vast majority of NHS maternity units, has been compromised in any part of the NHS, by a mistaken obsession with a particular ideology as to how births should take place”. And it’s a privilege to do it because in a way you are the only person in your field, who is really licenced to give an independent view and it would be a very big dereliction of duty not to do so.” He said health secretaries often had tenures shorter than “Chelsea football managers” adding: “Having done the job for longer than anyone else, it’s time for me to put that experience, both good and bad, at the disposal of parliament and the country to try and prevent my successor making the same mistakes that governments make year in year out, and help us take the NHS and social care system to a more positive place.” “Throughout all my time as health secretary, the NHS didn’t have enough money, and I was continually battling with No 10 and No 11 to get more money for the NHS. Not least because the first thing that would happen if it did is that Simon Stevens would want to reopen the funding package for the NHS.” He will replace former health select committee chair Sarah Wollaston, who Mr Hunt praised saying: “I’m filling very big shoes, she was the very model of being an independent MP, respected on all sides of the house for the independence of her views and the sincerity of her commitment to the NHS, and she deserves a lot of credit for the status she gave the health and social care committee.” A Department of Health spokesperson said: “We want the NHS to be the safest place in the world to have a baby and we’re committed to transforming maternity services as part the NHS Long Term Plan, backed by an extra £33.9 billion a year by 2023/24.