Responding to the Care Quality Commission’s national maternity inspection programme report, the chief executive of NHS Providers, Sir Julian Hartley said:

"This report confirms what trust leaders have long known: much more must be done to ensure that all mothers get safe, high-quality care and support during pregnancy and birth. The last thing they want is for poor care and preventable harm to become "normalised".

"Maternity services face long-standing challenges including persistent health and racial inequalities in outcomes and experiences for women using the service, significant gaps in the workforce, and more complex cases. As well as hiring, retaining and developing more staff, we need to ensure maternity teams have the right mix of staff to free up time to enable midwives to focus on caring for women and their babies.

"Trusts are committed to improving both outcomes and experiences for women but to deliver meaningful and system-wide improvement, they need sufficient and sustained investment, including in staffing and in maternity facilities.

"Trusts are tackling inequalities head-on too, ensuring they understand the diverse needs of those they are caring for, as well as supporting staff and women to feel able to speak up and be confident they will be listened to."