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Mid and West Wales AM Helen Mary Jones on fighting for justice following failures in maternity services

I’VE vowed to keep fighting for justice after a vote of no confidence in the Labour Health Minister fell, with the Llanelli AM backing his government colleague.

Plaid Cymru’s motion followed the publication of an independent report on maternity services at the former Cwm Taf University Health Board last month which outlined a distressing pattern of critical failures in maternity services across the areas served by Cwm Taf.

The review was triggered by 25 serious incidents, including eight stillbirths and five neonatal deaths, between January 2016 and last September.

The fight for justice for the families continues. Plaid Cymru have promised Cwm Taf families that we will never forget what they went through, and we will keep that promise.

I’m calling for a strengthened governance and quality of care framework to make sure this doesn’t happen again. Such a framework must include a professional body for NHS managers with the ability to strike off managers for poor performance and a genuinely independent Healthcare Inspectorate Wales.

We need an independent body to collect and publish statistics on performance that has the power to require health boards to provide data.

There should also be a legal duty of candour applied to all health professionals, including management, and a genuine and robust complaints system that supports families and patients.

Plaid Cymru will ensure that the Health Committee of the Assembly scrutinises the Labour led Welsh Government, and that families are able to give evidence. We will do all we can to hold people to account to ensure no families in Wales will ever have to experience such suffering again.

Follow me on twitter https://twitter.com/ helenmarycymru or like my page www.facebook. com/HelenMaryJones Plaid. If you wish to contact me about this or any other issues, email HelenMary.Jones@ assembly.wales