BREAKING: Major UK-wide probe into NHS maternity services - what happens next

Health Secretary Wes Streeting has announced a national investigation into NHS maternity services - saying too many children had died as a result of state failure.

Mr Streeting voiced his distress at "appalling scandals" and cover-ups over failings, and said deaths of mums and children has become "normalised". He issued a public apology for families who have been let down - saying: "They are owed the truth."

The Health Secretary said the risk is "considerably higher" than it should be and said there had been a "normalisation of deaths of women and babies".

He told clinicians: "You know better than most that this is also a moment of risk and jeopardy for women and their babies, and that risk is considerably higher than it should be because of the state of the crisis and on maternity and neonatal services here in the UK."

Mr Streeting said there have been "appalling scandals" and branded maternity "the biggest patient safety challenge facing our country". The Health Secretary said Black infants are twice as likely to be stillborn as White babies.

He said: "Too many children have died because of state failure, and I will not allow this to continue under my watch. Labour will not allow it to continue."

And he said maternity accounts for 41% of all medical negligence payouts. He stated: "I want to say publicly how sorry I am. Sorry for what the NHS has put them through. Sorry for the way they've been treated since by the state.

"And sorry that we haven't put this right yet because these families are owed more than an apology. They are owed change, they are owed real accountability and they are owed the truth."

The Labour frontbencher said failures in Shrewsbury, Telford, East Kent, Nottingham "blew the lid" on the scale of the healthcare crisis.

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