The Black Maternity Matters collaborative welcomes the government’s announcement of a rapid review into maternal and neonatal culture and safety, and particularly the focus on tackling inequalities in care for Black, Asian, and other underserved communities.
Like the wider community working to end harm, poor outcomes and trauma for women, families, and babies racialised as Black using perinatal services, we urge the government to move swiftly towards action. Asking people to retell their already often-told experiences retraumatises individuals and our hope is that instead we can collectively work on delivering real change and improvements in care.
We ask the government to work in collaboration with organisations like us who have been delivering impactful, evidence-based approaches for the past five years. This is not “new news”. It is disappointing that the comparative reduction in the maternal death rate for mothers racialised as Black is a statistical artefact due to the recent relative increase in maternity mortality for women racialised as white. This is not a true improvement in outcomes, and we urge everyone to recognise this.
Black Maternity Matters is the only multi-disciplinary, perinatal anti-racist collaboration of its kind in the UK. We bring together anti-racist experts, grass roots organisations and healthcare professionals dedicated to stopping the inequity and harm that women and families racialised as Black continue to face within maternity and neonatal services.
We have pioneered delivering anti-racist immersion with perinatal staff since 2021, training teams, systems, and specialities together. We have trained upwards of 400 clinicians and very senior leaders to date and are seeing early indicators of improvement in a range of clinical outcomes. You can read the latest evaluation report on our training for senior leaders here.
We are a social movement with eliminating racial injustice at the heart, getting this right for those with the biggest impact, improving care and outcomes for all women, families, and babies as a result.
We are primed and ready to support turning evidence into action, so that women, families, and babies racialised as Black are no longer disproportionately at risk of harm, trauma, and death. We have so much learning to share from our work over the last five years, which we believe would be incredibly valuable to contribute as part of this government review to inform positive and practical action. Let’s talk!
The Black Maternity Matters Collaborative, 26 June 2025
(BCohCo, Representation Matters, Black Mothers Matter, Health Innovation West of England)
Find out more
Find out more about Black Maternity Matters here.
To contact the team, please email healthinnowest.blackmaternitymatters@nhs.net.
Posted on June 26, 2025
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