{"id":4672,"date":"2026-07-25T20:52:54","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T20:52:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/?p=4672"},"modified":"2026-07-25T20:52:56","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T20:52:56","slug":"4-5-million-to-improve-berkshire-maternity-and-neonatal-services","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/?p=4672","title":{"rendered":"\u00a34.5 million to improve Berkshire maternity and neonatal services"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/s300_maternity_nurse_on_ward.png\" alt=\"\"><br \/>\n<\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>Funding will help tackle safety risks in maternity and neonatal facilities<\/li>\n<li>Part of \u00a3187 million announced for national improvements since April 2025<\/li>\n<li>Maternity services a priority for new &lt;a href=&quot;https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/?p=4666&quot; title=&quot;Kabul, Tashkent discuss <a href=\"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/?p=4638\" title=\"Yas Queen! Drag and Trans Women\u2019s Mental Health\">health<\/a> sector cooperation&#8221;&gt;Health<\/a> and Social Care Secretary<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Families across Berkshire will have their maternity services improved as \u00a34.5 million of dedicated funding is rolled out across the region<\/p>\n<p>The funding will be used to reduce the most urgent safety risks in maternity and neonatal facilities, including issues such as fire safety, ventilation and outdated infrastructure &#8211; creating safer environments for mothers and newborns.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The investment is part of \u00a3187 million announced for national improvements since April 2025 and a further \u00a325 million to help tackle the causes of maternal death, improve triage services and enhance bereavement facilities announced earlier this year<\/p>\n<p>These steps are being taken as part of urgent action in response to the landmark National Maternity and Neonatal Investigation (the Amos review), which published its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.matneoinv.org.uk\/final-reports\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">final report and recommendations<\/a> on 30 June 2026, including the creation of the first ever maternity and neonatal commissioner.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Health and Social Care Secretary Yvette Cooper spoke about the challenges raised by the Amos review at a visit to the Royal Berkshire <a href=\"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/?p=4655\" title=\"Free bus travel to help vulnerable pregnant women get to hospital\">Hospital<\/a> maternity department on 22 July 2026. She said:\u00a0<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>When I was a junior health minister 25 years ago, maternity services were one of my top priorities and they will be again today. I think the importance of good quality maternity services in our NHS has too often been underestimated. So too has the traumatic impact for families when things go wrong. That\u2019s why we\u2019ve had deeply distressing cases where families were let down. Every woman having a baby in the NHS should feel safe and looked after, and that has to be our mission.<\/p>\n<p>It was a privilege to be at the Royal Berkshire Hospital\u2019s maternity department today, to meet staff and patients and talk about their experiences. It\u2019s vital that we\u2019re there for people and they can rely on us, particularly at the beginning of a newborn\u2019s life. A lot of good work has been done but there is so much more to do<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Yvette Cooper was appointed as the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on 20 July 2026 and has said maternity care will be one of her most important priorities. As part of her role she is chair of the National Maternity and Neonatal Taskforce<\/p>\n<p>Since June 2024, significant progress has been made to reform maternity services in England, including:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>recruiting 2,000 more midwives<\/li>\n<li>the introduction of a new programme to reduce brain injuries during labour<\/li>\n<li>the extension of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.england.nhs.uk\/patient-safety\/marthas-rule\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Martha\u2019s Rule<\/a> to maternity and neonatal wards across England<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Background information<\/h2>\n<p>This funding is from the \u00a3750 million per year Estates Safety Fund, and includes funding from 2025 to 2026<\/p>\n<h2>Updates to this page<\/h2>\n<p>Published 22 July 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Families across Berkshire will have their maternity services improved as \u00a34.5 million of dedicated funding is rolled out across the region<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4675,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[364,119,315,291,365],"class_list":["post-4672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pregnancy","tag-berkshire","tag-improve","tag-maternity","tag-million","tag-neonatal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4672"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4674,"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4672\/revisions\/4674"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}