Donna Ockenden
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Donna Ockenden

B2Upper-intermediateJuly 4, 202614 min

Donna Ockenden is a senior midwife and healthcare leader who has spent more than 35 years reforming patient safety in UK maternity services. Born in South Wales, she overcame a difficult childhood marked by poverty, family breakdown, and a period of homelessness. As a young midwife she cared for a baby named Gina who died from substandard care. This tragic event led to her lifelong 'Gina promise' to devote her career to making childbirth safer for mothers and infants. Ockenden qualified as both a nurse and a midwife, before moving into senior NHS leadership...

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Thanks for downloading Profile. This week's presenter is Stephen Smith.

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It is a fundamental obligation of a civilised health service.

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B2 · Upper-intermediate

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0:00

Thanks for downloading Profile. This week's presenter is Stephen Smith. Safe, equitable maternity care is not a luxury. It is a fundamental obligation of a civilised health service. And we are not yet consistently delivering it.

0:20

That's Donna Ockenden, a midwife and maternity investigator, presenting her report last week on what went wrong at Nottingham University Hospitals, NHS Trust. She found that deeply embedded systemic failures led to deaths and avoidable harm to babies and mothers. Previously, Ockenden found catastrophic failures at Shrosebury and

0:44

Telford NHS Trust. As confidence in some maternity services has taken a blow, Ockenden is one figure that grieving parents have come to rely on. Passionate is the first word that comes to my head. She's passionate about doing the right thing for women in particular and their families.

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