Black women are four times more likely to die from pregnancy and childbirth. When the Government is asked take action on this, they often claim they don’t have enough data. This week, campaign organisation Five X More (the Secretariat of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Black Maternal Health) have released their own survey of 1,300 Black women’s experiences of UK maternity care.

I was honoured to give a keynote speech at the Royal College of Nursing but as I told the audience, it can’t be right that we have to re-live our trauma just to be listened to. With fully 43% of the women surveyed reporting facing discrimination in maternity care, the evidence of institutional racism is there for the Government to see. Now they need to act, by setting binding targets to end these disparities once and for all.