Maternity, mental health, children’s services, and prevention programmes are facing significant funding reductions following NHS England’s decision to remove ringfenced allocations, according to an analysis by the Health Service Journal (HSJ)

The Sands and Tommy’s Joint Policy Unit has expressed concern that these cuts will hinder efforts to respond to national reports, such as the Ockenden report, and to improve equity and equality in maternity care.

Robert Wilson, head of the Sands and Tommy’s Joint Policy Unit, said: “We have consistently highlighted the need for a much more comprehensive approach to supporting improvements in maternity safety and properly learning lessons from recent reviews and reports.

“This is a step in the wrong direction, particularly as the Labour party manifesto made a clear commitment to ‘ensure that trusts failing on maternity care are robustly supported into rapid improvement’. In light of these changes, at a time when we are not on track to meet government targets to reduce rates of stillbirth and neonatal death by 2025, clarity is required on how that commitment will be met.”

The removal of ringfencing means that funding previously allocated specifically for services such as maternity care, mental health, children’s services, and prevention programmes will now be part of broader budgets, giving local systems more discretion over spending. But there are concerns that this could lead to reduced investment in these critical areas.

The Ockenden report, led by Donna Ockenden, investigated maternity services at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust and highlighted significant failings in care. The report called for urgent improvements in maternity safety across the NHS.

The Sands and Tommy’s Joint Policy Unit, formed by the charities Sands and Tommy’s, focuses on achieving policy change to save more babies’ lives during pregnancy and the neonatal period and on tackling inequalities in loss, so that everyone can benefit from the best possible outcomes.

The unit’s recent report estimated that at least 800 babies’ lives could have been saved with better care in the previous year and emphasised the need for meaningful action to address persistent inequalities in baby loss rates among different groups.

The Department of Health and Social Care has highlighted its investment of an additional £165 million a year to improve maternity and neonatal care since 2021, increasing to £185 million a year from April 2024. But the Sands and Tommy’s Joint Policy Unit argues that this increase does not keep pace with inflation and is insufficient to meet the scale of improvement needed.

The government’s target is to halve the rate of stillbirth, neonatal, and maternal deaths by 2025 compared with 2010. But current progress indicates that this target is unlikely to be met without renewed commitment and investment.