The Black Maternity Matters Collaborative welcomes the publication of the National Maternity & Neonatal Investigation Interim Report and strongly supports its call for urgent, systemic action to tackle racial inequities in maternity and neonatal care.
The findings continue to reinforce what communities and professionals across our region have been highlighting for many years: that women, families and babies racialised as Black or Brown continue to face unacceptable disparities in their experiences and outcomes. We continue to elevate racism in maternity and neonatal systems as an urgent patient safety issue.
The time has now come to move from collating the experiences and retraumatising women and families and to move towards evidence-based action to reduce harm.
We want to assure women and families who are racialised as Black and Brown in the West of England that through our collaboration, we remain committed to working with perinatal teams, senior leaders, our community organisations and people with lived experience of racialisation to ensure that care is safe and free from threat of medical and institutional racism.
As always, we stand ready to work collaboratively with national and regional partners to turn these recommendations into meaningful, measurable improvements for women, babies and families racialised as Black and Brown.
With five years of experience, over 500 perinatal staff and senior leaders trained, and a committed ongoing community of NHS staff dedicated to reducing race inequity, we once again offer NHS England and the government the opportunity to share our years of experience of delivering evidenced-based perinatal anti-racism theory and practice, the only offer of its kind in the UK.
The Black Maternity Matters Collaborative, 11 December 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 December 11, 2025
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