NHS England to offer ‘birth budgets’ to pregnant women

The personal budgets, worth at least £3,000 each, are to be offered to pregnant women throughout England so that they can decide on the maternity care they receive.

The aim of the overhaul is to increase choices for women and to improve safety in maternity services, and has come about following recommendations from an independent review of services.

Although the review said that there had never been a safer time to give birth in England, it also said that improvements needed to be made to ensure maternity care in the country was “world class”.

The review showed that nearly all maternity service inspections found assessments in safety that were classified as either “requiring improvement” or “inadequate”, and in around one in 17 births, incidents led to some level of harm to either the mother or baby.

In order to conduct the review, evidence was gathered from thousands of families on their experience of maternity care and it showed that they “did not always have confidence” that problems would be investigated correctly or that complications would be noticed.

Conservative peer Baroness Julia Cumberledge, who chaired the review, said the personal budgets would provide women with “more clout and more opportunity to exercise the choices that they want.”

She went on to say “Women are telling us that one of the things they really want is continuity of the person looking after them … who looks after them through the pregnancy, through the birth and through the aftercare, and we know that’s going to make a huge difference to safety”.

Simon Stevens, chief executive of NHS England, said the health service would be working towards a five year strategy set out by the review, while Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said this was a “significant moment” and would make services safer and allow women more choice.

Chadwick Lawrence’s team of medical negligence lawyers have years of experience in high value and complex medical negligence compensation claims and have an excellent record. The team is led by Tony May, a specialist cerebral palsy and birth injury solicitor, who has over 20 years experience in handling cases in which babies have been brain damaged or sustained other injuries as a result of medical negligence.  He and his team continue to represent many cerebral palsy children and young adults in medical negligence claims.  Tony also acts as the Court of Protection Deputy for many of the cerebral palsy and brain damaged clients that he has represented, so we can continue to support you after your case is settled.  Tony can be contacted by email on tonymay@chadlaw.co.uk.  Alternatively, please call and speak to any of Chadwick Lawrence’s specialist medical negligence Legal Aid and no win-no fee solicitors for free legal advice on the freephone number below.

Freephone: 0800 028 2969

For further information, please see our cerebral palsy and birth injury website:

http://www.cerebralpalsyclaimssolicitors.co.uk

Posted by Tony May, Partner/head of Clinical Negligence Department, Chadwick Lawrence LLP (tonymay@chadlaw.co.uk ), medical negligence lawyers and clinical negligence solicitors in Huddersfield, Leeds, Wakefield and Halifax, West Yorkshire.