- Amma
June 4, 2026
Every week, we support women and birthing people through pregnancy, birth, and the immediate postnatal period at Queen Elizabeth University Hospital (QEUH). We frequently see the dedication of the staff who care for them. We also see what happens when a system is pushed beyond its limits. Today’s Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) report speaks to both realities.
This is the seventh unannounced HIS maternity inspection to take place in Scotland, and the overall picture is consistent. Whilst the findings at QEUH are the starkest to emerge so far, they reflect a national maternity care system that has been consistently underfunded and inadequately resourced. At Amma, we know that when the system is stretched, those facing the greatest barriers – including women from refugee and other migrant backgrounds – are disproportionately affected.
The findings
The findings in the QEUH inspection report are deeply concerning. With 26 requirements, a formal letter of serious concern, and the decision by HIS to escalate concerns at level 1, these go beyond routine recommendations.
The report highlights grave issues across a wide range of clinical areas. Many of these are not new pressures; several were also identified in our own 2024 Birth Outcomes and Experiences Report. These include issues with interpreter provision, delays to care, staffing levels, and training needs.
The report also recognises good practice within QEUH maternity services, including the dedication and kindness of staff, the use of positive birth language, a strong learning environment for student midwives, and ongoing work to address racialised inequalities. We see examples of this in our work, and it is important to acknowledge this good practice.
We would also note that tackling systemic racism in maternity care requires sustained focus, ongoing accountability, and the meaningful involvement of the communities most affected – and we will continue to push for that.
Our response
Interpreter provision
Access to an interpreter is a clinical and legal requirement. However, our own 2024 Birth Outcomes and Experiences Report, cited in the inspection report, found that 74% of women who needed an interpreter experienced issues around access to or quality of interpreting. The HIS report echoes this, noting issues with interpreter availability including staff resorting to informal platforms to support communication with women. We have previously raised similar concerns.
Although we have seen some improvement since our 2024 report, we are concerned that these issues persist, particularly when the stakes are so high. When women go without an interpreter, their ability to understand their care, participate in decisions, and give informed consent is compromised.
We welcome the work ongoing within NHSGGC to improve interpreting provision, but it must continue to be treated as a priority — especially for women who may need language support at short notice or in less common languages and dialects. In our experience, these issues are not always about individual staff behaviour. They also reflect a wider failure to ensure that properly funded, high-quality interpreting services are consistently available to those who need them.
Delays to care
The report found that women experienced delays to induction of labour of up to eight days in some cases, with at least 128 women affected by delays to labour ward access or induction over a six-month period. The report notes that delays can affect women’s dignity, choice of analgesia, and access to basic foetal monitoring, with psychological impacts that are well documented, and that can extend beyond the current pregnancy into future ones.
Delays in care are distressing for anyone — but for women who do not speak English, have no partner beside them, or have left children at home with no wider support network, the experience is something else entirely. Waiting for hours with no clear information about what is happening or why can be a frightening and isolating experience for the women we support.
Staffing
The report found inpatient wards regularly operating between 7% and 13% over capacity with staff describing conditions as “unsafe” and “dangerous”. The report described working without breaks being the norm across the service, and senior charge midwives described having their professional judgement on safe staffing overridden.
In our work alongside NHSGGC maternity services, we see many examples of midwives going above and beyond for the women in their care. But we also see the impact of chronic understaffing. When staff are unable to take breaks and stretched across a service running over capacity, the quality of care will inevitably be affected. This is about how the system is resourced, not about individual staff.
NHSGGC has recognised the need to act on staffing, and recruitment is underway. But recruitment alone will not address the deeper cultural and governance issues the report identifies, nor will it immediately relieve the pressure on the women and staff experiencing it now.
Training needs
We also note the report’s recommendation that NHSGGC improve trauma-informed training for all staff. Amma has been working with NHSGGC to develop training for midwives, co-produced with our Experts by Experience group, which centres trauma-informed, culturally sensitive care. We hope this work will contribute to meeting that recommendation.
Calls to action
In response to the inspection findings, we are calling on NHSGGC to:
- Treat all 26 requirements as urgent and ensure the action plan is implemented fully and transparently
- Prioritise interpreter provision as a safety-critical issue, ensuring consistent access for all women regardless of language, time of day, or acuity pressures
- Ensure that women from racialised communities and those facing the greatest barriers are not disproportionately harmed by systemic pressures. Continue to implement the Scottish Government’s national action plan on racialised inequalities in maternity care.
- Continue to involve organisations like Amma, and the women we support, in designing and monitoring solutions to create a more equitable maternity care system
Our relationship with NHSGGC
Amma has a longstanding and constructive working relationship with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde. We are committed to working alongside the NHS to improve experiences and outcomes for the women and families we support.
Since our 2024 Birth Outcomes and Experiences Report, NHSGGC has taken concrete steps to improve care, including regular meetings between Amma, the Director of Midwifery, and Blossom midwifery team; equality and anti-racism training; efforts to improve interpreter provision including a video interpreting pilot; and the development of Amma training videos for midwives co-produced with our Experts by Experience group. NHSGGC’s own action plan to tackle racialised inequalities in maternity care has also been produced and is being monitored. We are committed to continuing this work and to ensuring that progress is maintained and accountable.
The bigger picture
We welcome the establishment of the Scottish Maternity and Neonatal Taskforce and urge it to treat HIS inspection findings as a central part of its work. However, Scotland has no shortage of evidence identifying what needs to change in maternity care – the missing components are the resource and political will to implement it. What is needed now is not another review, but a fully funded, resourced workforce plan that gives boards like NHSGGC what they actually need to deliver safe, equitable maternity care.
We are also calling on the Scottish Government to ensure that maternity care remains a visible political priority. We are concerned about the removal of the dedicated Women’s Health Minister role following the recent ministerial reshuffle. Responsibility for women’s health now sits within a single brief spanning mental wellbeing, public health, sport, alcohol and drugs. When reports like this one demand urgent government action, maternity care should not have to compete for attention within a wide-reaching portfolio.
Meaningful, lasting improvements require the Scottish Government to commit the necessary funding and resources to boards across Scotland, including NHSGGC. The views of women whose needs are too often overlooked by maternity services must be central to this work.
At Amma, our advocacy is grounded in the experiences of the women we support. We will continue to use what we hear and see in our work to hold maternity services and the Scottish Government to account and to advocate for the standard of care every woman and birthing person in Scotland deserves.
To find out more about the experiences of the women we support, read our 2024 Birth Outcomes and Experiences Report.