After enduring a traumatic birth with her daughter, one woman “felt compelled to do something” to raise awareness about the scale and seriousness of poor maternal care.

Campaigner, Jo Cruse, who founded Delivering Better, helped write an open letter to Wes Streeting, the current Secretary of State for Health and Social Care in the UK, demanding changes including continuity of care and post-birth health check-ins. 

Ms Cruse set up the charity following the difficult birth of her daughter and she discovered that other mothers had suffered “absolutely appalling experiences of care.”

Delivering Better have revealed one in four women have negative birth experiences, and 65% of maternity services were rated as not safe for women to give birth in.

“I couldn’t believe how there was so much publicly available information on how appalling care was, or how harm had become normalised, and the way in which the issue had been positioned largely was that this is a case of a few bad apple trusts,” said Ms Cruse. “It’s a national systematic problem.”

In addition to raising awareness, the campaign advocates for more compassionate care for women through political engagement. 

Ms Cruse felt there was a gap for grassroots national movements of women and allies who could push this issue onto the national and political agenda.

In an open letter to Wes Streeting, Delivering Better demands changes, including continuity of care and post-birth health check-ins. 

The NHS currently provides a postnatal check around six weeks after giving birth, where the mental health and wellbeing of mothers are discussed.

Post-natal care is “poor”, said Ms Cruse. She added, “There is a cliff edge at six weeks as many mental health conditions that present in the first year, hadn’t actually manifested in the first six weeks.”

Responding to the Government and NHS England’s decision to cut ringfenced funding for maternity services in England from £95 million in 2024/2025 to just £2 million in 2025/26, Ms Cruse said:

“We’re concerned about it in terms of its practical impact, but it also is deeply concerning in terms of the message that it sends, which is ‘this is not a priority’.”

The charity also sets up workshops with midwives talking to them about experiences that women have had and how care could have been better.

Ms Cruse makes it clear that focusing on midwives is not the aim of the campaign, as “most women will have had an amazing midwife who did their absolute best, but were just let down by the system.”

However, she wanted to highlight ways in which individual midwives can do seemingly small things that can make a “huge” difference to the women they’re caring for, such as reading notes out loud.

Ms Cruse said that it is widely known what needs to be done to improve maternity care, as recommendations have been clearly outlined in previous public inquiries in maternal care.

After building up a community of advocates, the challenge that faces the campaign is “making this enough of a political priority that the funding and political leadership will take back these recommendations.”

This week marks the first anniversary since the charity was founded.