‘Devastated’ parents express concerns about national maternity assessment

Martin Shipton

Parents whose lives were devastated by their involvement with a failing maternity unit have expressed serious concerns about a planned national assessment of maternity services following a meeting with Welsh Government officials.

In September 2023 a Healthcare Inspectorate Wales (HIW) inspection report concluded that the safety and wellbeing of mothers and babies could not be guaranteed at the Singleton Hospital unit in Swansea.

The Welsh Government refused to hold a public inquiry into concerns about the unit. Instead a review was commissioned by Swansea Bay University Health Board (SBUHB), which presided over the unit’s failings.

Many parents refused to cooperate with the review because they had no faith in the way it was organised. Instead they published harrowing accounts of their negative experiences with the unit.

Nevertheless, the health board pressed ahead with its review and in July 2025 two parallel “official” reports were published – one an “Independent” review and the other a “family-led” report based on the testimony of 50 families.

Apologised

Following publication of the two reports, Mr Miles apologised for the unit’s failings and confirmed that a national assessment of maternity services would be undertaken.

Earlier this week a virtual meeting took place between Welsh Government officials and a number of parents including Rob and Sian Channon, whose son Gethin, now six, suffered severe brain damage as a result of medical negligence at the Singleton unit.

Mr Channon told Nation.Cymru: “Jeremy Miles announced a national assessment of maternity in Wales shortly after [UK Health Secretary] Wes Streeting announced something similar in England.

“The meeting with several families from across Wales to discuss the assessment. went very badly for the Welsh Government.

“They were at pains to stress this isn’t a review but merely an assessment and kept using the strange phrase that it was a ‘temperature check’.

“There are several very big problems with this ‘temperature check’:

1. The assessment will not look at the Welsh Government involvement in maternity. We repeatedly warned the Welsh Government what was happening after we met them in November 2022.

2. The Welsh Government have excluded HIW, HEIW (Health Education and Improvement Wales), Improvement Cymru and every other non-health board organisation that should have stopped the Swansea issues.

3. The Welsh Government have appointed the Chair and panel for this assessment without any consultation. We were told that Jeremy Miles has the appointments on his desk to sign off. This is exactly what SBUHB did with their disastrous review.

4. The engagement lead from the SBUHB review, Ken Sutton, has actually been appointed to this review. We know what a disaster engagement was on the SBUHB review.

5. The assessment will only look at one year of data, and the data for it will actually be provided by health boards themselves.

6. The people on the ground doing the assessing are actually employees from the NHS Wales performance and improvement team. The team that missed what was going on in Swansea Bay.

7. The assessment will be complete by December – not enough time to properly look at anything.

“I could go on but despite being strongly called out by every family they don’t plan on changing course.

“Considering that in the past six years there have been issues in Cwm Taf and Swansea Bay, the Welsh Government have decided to basically run a bit of a scam assessment.”

Progress

A spokesperson for the Welsh Government said: “Good progress is being made into the establishment of an assurance assessment of maternity and neonatal services across Wales. This is a structured process by which the panel members will assess the quality of services across Wales against a defined standard. This will not be a full review of our services, due to the need to gain an immediate insight into the safety of our units.

“At the heart of this assurance assessment will be the voices and experiences of women and families. A further announcement about the panel and chair will be made shortly.”

Later Mr Channon said: “The Welsh Government promised the families across Wales the PowerPoint slides from Wednesday’s meeting. Several mums chased them today for the slides but they have refused to release them until next week at the earliest.

“They have also suggested some sort of letter might be sent out.

“The mums from across Wales are not happy with being kept in the dark and promises not being delivered.”