Vital plans to give coroners the power to investigate stillbirths have ‘stalled’ – more than two years after a Government consultation closed.
Ministers promised that they would announce if the government will move forward with the plan in June 2019. Campaigners believe this is critical to improving safety at maternity hospitals.
The NHS has been rocked since then by two scandals involving baby deaths at West Midlands hospitals and one study showing that stillbirths increased almost twice during the Covid lockdown. MPs on the House of Commons Justice Committee said they were ‘disappointed’ the consultation ‘appears to have stalled’ and said it should be revived.
Last night, former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said: ‘We have made huge progress in reducing stillbirths but it is a manifest injustice that coroners cannot investigate them. This must not be put on the back burner.’
Last night, former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said: ‘We have made huge progress in reducing stillbirths but it is a manifest injustice that coroners cannot investigate them. This must not be put on the back burner.’
The Mail on Sunday began a campaign for legalizing coroners to look into late-term stillbirths in 2015.