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CUMBERLEGE REPORT
Following the Winterton Report on Maternity Services (1) in March 1992, the Secretary of State for Health, Virginia Bottomley set up a task force headed by the Under Secretary of State for Health, Baroness Julia Cumberlege, to review the matter further and make practical recommendations. This Expert Maternity Group has taken a closer look at how maternity services could best be organised.
Its report Changing Childbirth (2) is the culmination of extensive research. It follows in the footsteps of the Winterton report in that it seems to adequately reflect what women and their families need from the services. Whereas the Winterton report provided a highly detailed overview and philosophical framework for the future of maternity services, the Cumberlege report is an action document, which charts the waters for implementing change.
The membership of the group boded well from the start, in that it comprised a well-balanced representative group of people,including highly thought of practitioners and consumers. Like the Select Committee for the Winterton Report, in its nine months of preparation, the nets were cast far and wide. The group consulted extensively with parents and professionals, visited various units and practices throughout Britain, organised a Con AIMS Hon. Chair, Beverley Beech was one of the speakers) and commissioned a number of studies and surveys to assess amongst other things, the views of women not necessarily linked to any particular consumer organisation. In addition, the Report is based on sound scientific evidence and appropriate references are quoted throughout the text.
Its main recommendations for the future are that services should be:
- woman-centred
- accessible to all and geared to individual needs (it is encouraging that all sections of the community have been considered)
That they should provide:
- detailed and unbiased information on local services
- good teamwork between professionals
- appropriate, locally based ante-natal care
- known carers
- a relaxed and private environment for birth and the moments after birth
- accessible help in the weeks after birth
That women should:
- be able to make an initial booking with a midwife or a GP
- be encouraged to plan their care with the appropriate professionals
- be encouraged to think about the birth itself
- be enabled to change their...