The Know Daily - Monday 13 May 2024

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Tate Britain has acquired its first painting by the “pioneering” English artist Louise Jopling, whose work has been “overlooked for a century”, reported The Guardian. Jopling’s Through the Looking-Glass - a self-portrait she made while pregnant with her son in 1875 - will be shown as part of a new exhibition exploring women artists in British history. 

📝 Recommendations on maternity care

A landmark parliamentary inquiry has called for an overhaul of maternity and postnatal care in the UK.

What did the inquiry find?
Led by a cross-party group of MPs, the Birth Trauma Inquiry was set up to discover why some women have difficult experiences in childbirth. The inquiry heard evidence from more than 1,300 women, finding that good care for pregnant women “is the expectation rather than the rule” with women “treated as an inconvenience”. 

What does it recommend? 
The inquiry’s report - set to be presented to ministers later today - makes 12 recommendations in total, including the appointment of a new maternity commissioner who would report directly to the prime minister. It also calls for mothers’ health records to be digitised, and for mothers to be given “universal access” to specialist maternal mental health services across the UK. 

How have ministers responded?
The government and the NHS have committed to producing a comprehensive strategy for maternity services following the report, said The Times. In a statement, health secretary Victoria Atkins said the government was “determined to improve the quality and consistency of care”. 

She said that the rollout of new physical and mental health services for mothers and pregnant women across England would be completed by the end of the year, adding that an extra £35m had been made available in the Spring Budget to boost maternity safety “with more midwives and better training”.