John Swinney apologises to two women amid call for miscarriage care to be reviewed

John Swinney has apologised to two women who suffered miscarriages despite being flagged as high-risk pregnancies.

Elizabeth Crammond called her local pregnancy unit for help 60 times after experiencing bleeding and pain. It took the NHS nine days to confirm she had miscarried.

And Katie Lyon was forced to attend A&E due a lack of capacity in the maternity service. She also had to wait seven days before her miscarriage was confirmed by the NHS.

Scottish Labour acting leader Jackie Baillie, raising their cases at First Minister’s Questions, called for an urgent review of the miscarriage framework.

The first minister said he was “terribly sorry” to hear about the experience of the two women and he pointed to a government-commissioned review of maternity services.

That followed failures in care that led to baby deaths. The review will examine how maternity services can improve to meet the needs of women across the country, with a particular focus on rural areas.

But Baillie said the framework for miscarriage care was “not working”, as demonstrated by the failures experienced by Crammond and Lyon.

She said: “The first minister must do the right thing and ensure that miscarriage care is urgently reviewed and women’s voices are heard.”

She also raised concerns about a failure to tackle problems in women’s health more broadly, highlighting high waiting times for hysterectomy and other gynaecology services. She criticised the scrapping of a dedicated ministerial role focused on women’s health.

On the miscarriages suffered by Crammond and Lyon, Swinney said: “I am terribly sorry for the experience these two woman have had within our health services.”

He said both cases would be looked at “to provide as much information” to the women.

He added: “It is so important when there is any vulnerability whatsoever in relation to a pregnancy that the earliest possible intervention is provided. That’s what the maternity framework is designed to offer. It has clearly not delivered that in this case. We must understand why that is the case and provide a remedy.”

And on Baillie’s call to review the framework, he said: “The framework for the delivery of maternity care should adders the circumstance that Jackie Baillie has put to me. It has clearly not done that. And Jackie Baillie is putting tow cases to me where that is very apparent.”

On the point about no longer having a women’s health minister, the first minister highlighted his health team was “all female”.