National investigation into maternity and neonatal services

Our Trust

In August 2025 the Government announced that Baroness Valerie Amos had been appointed to lead the independent investigation into NHS maternity and neonatal services to drive urgent improvements to care and safety. The investigation will identify ways to urgently improve care and safety, with Baroness Valerie Amos working closely with bereaved and harmed families. It will also review the maternity and neonatal system, bringing together the findings of past reviews into one clear national set of actions to ensure every woman and baby receives safe, high-quality and compassionate care.

The National Maternity and Neonatal Investigation will develop one set of national recommendations to drive improvements in maternity and neonatal services across England.

Baroness Amos is asking women and families across England to share their experiences of maternity and neonatal care through a public Call for Evidence. Responses to the Call for Evidence will be used to inform the National Maternity and Neonatal Investigation’s findings and recommendations.

The Call for Evidence is open for 8 weeks from 20 January until 11.59 pm on 17 March 2026.

Find out more about the Call for Evidence, including how you can share your experiences on the National Maternity and Neonatal Investigation website.

The National Maternity and Neonatal Investigation has issued this privacy notice, detailing the information they will be collecting from Trusts. A privacy notice describes how we collect, use, retain and disclose personal information.

Questions and answers about the National Maternity and Neonatal Investigation

The questions and answers below have been shared by Baroness Valerie Amos to help local communities, colleagues and wider partners understand more about the investigation she is leading.

The decision to review these 14 trusts is based on a range of factors. These include data and metrics designed to capture individual elements of a trust’s outcomes and its patients’ experiences – such as the CQC maternity patient survey and MBRRACE-UK perinatal mortality rates.

The final selection has also been made with a view to working to ensure a diverse mix of trusts, including:

  • Variation in case mix
  • Trust type
  • Geographic coverage
  • Provision of care to individuals from diverse backgrounds, including consideration of social, economic and racial inequalities
  • Family feedback
  • Where previous investigations have taken place.

By taking this approach the Investigation can capture experience and learning from a wide range of trusts, ensuring the findings are relevant across the system.

The aims of the investigation are:

  1. To develop and publish one set of national recommendations to:
    • Drive the improvements needed to ensure high quality and safe maternity and neonatal care across England
    • Reduce inequalities and promote health equity in the delivery of those services
  2. To ensure that the lived experiences of women, babies and families, including fathers and non-birthing partners, are fully heard and used to inform the development of the national recommendations.
  3. To conduct and publish 14 local investigations of maternity and neonatal services in NHS Trusts and use these alongside other sources of data and evidence gathered by the investigation to inform the development of the national recommendations.

Local investigations will be carried out by trained investigators who will spend several days on site at each trust, supported by a small team. Our current expectation is that visits will take place between October and December 2025, though these timings are indicative only and may need to change.

We are aware of the pressures faced by all trusts during the winter months and are keen to be as flexible as possible in our approach, while meeting the ambitious timelines for this review. We are committed to providing at least two weeks’ notice for any information requests, as well as advance notice of site visits, to ensure the process is as manageable as possible.

This investigation is about understanding and identifying lessons learned and driving the improvements needed to ensure high quality and safe maternity and neonatal care across England.

The local investigations team will speak to some staff. They will be notified in advance if the team would like to hear from them as part of their work.

This investigation is about understanding the experiences of affected women and families, identifying lessons learned and driving the improvements needed to ensure high quality and safe maternity and neonatal care across England.

The local investigations will invite contributions from women and families who use the local services, but there will no obligation to contribute in this way. The national Investigation will also be conducting a public call for evidence so women and families who feel more comfortable contributing via this route will be able to do so.

The local investigations will invite contributions from all relevant parties when gathering evidence.