Strategic entanglements, moral & truth regimes in NHS maternity healthcare

Two central principles are frequently and persistently represented as underpinning the provision of maternity healthcare in the NHS: evidence-based care, and patient-centred care, often invoked as ‘woman-centred’ care. In this talk, I bring together two qualitative research projects to discuss how moral and truth regimes are embedded in NHS maternity care. I argue that moral and truth regimes interact with one another strategically in pursuit of healthcare goals in this morally-charged area of policy-making and clinical care. My examples are interventions at different registers of NHS action: the attempted implementation of the workforce organisation model Midwifery Continuity of Carer, as studied by the SIMCA project on which I was a Research Fellow; and the reproductive technology of the cervical stitch (cerclage) used in specific patients to prevent preterm birth, the subject of my new Wellcome Early Career Award. Both interventions are recommended in a key NHS England maternity policy, the Saving Babies’ Lives Care Bundle, now in its third iteration. I conclude with some thoughts about this policy in relation to the reproductive governance of maternity care.

Venue: Byrne House, University of Exeter (spaces limited)

Virtual: via Zoom

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