Racism in NHS maternity care is an ongoing problem responsible for poorer outcomes among black women in England, an inquiry by MPs has concluded.
Black women are more than twice as likely as white women to die in pregnancy, childbirth, or the postnatal period, the Health and Social Care Committee highlighted.
The committee’s report, published on 17 September,1 found that black women in England continued to face disproportionately poor outcomes in maternity care owing to systemic failings in leadership, training, data collection, and accountability. MPs said that these failings had contributed to the NHS in England paying out £27.4bn in maternity negligence claims since 2019.
The inquiry sought to understand why improvements in black maternal health remained elusive despite growing awareness of the problems and repeated policy commitments to tackle them and identify barriers to improving the situation.
MPs heard repeatedly that racism was “one of the core drivers” of …
