Scotland Maternity Services Independent Review

Information about the independent review of maternity services in Scotland, led by a team from the School of Health & Medical Sciences.

In June 2026 the Scottish Government announced plans for an independent review of maternity services in Scotland . The preparatory work started in September 2026 and the review is due to report by the end of June 2027. The review work will be conducted by an independent university-based team in line with the principles set out by the Scottish Government.

Our team will work closely with two advisory groups who will meet regularly throughout the process, providing advice, highlighting important areas of evidence and responding to emerging information.

We want to ensure that the review takes a comprehensive look at the range of contexts that influence maternity care experience and outcomes, the diversity of people involved and their experiences, including those who provide maternity care and those who have experienced it.

To this end, we will:

• visit a wide cross-section of services and communities.
• look at quantitative and qualitative evidence on care organisation, processes and outcomes.
• hear from a range of people through community listening meetings, service visits, and individual and small group interviews.

This review is intended to be both independent and forward looking. By forward looking we mean that we should learn from past and present, in order to draw lessons about how care can be improved in future; we should examine service challenges but also identify positive examples of care that should be sustained and shared more widely.

Maternity care is influenced by a wide range of factors, from broad social influences on health and wellbeing, health structures and financing, how services are organised and staffed, through to everyday practices and experiences of providing and receiving care.

Therefore, this review will take a whole-system approach, to learn about challenges, good practice and ways forward taking into account the context of care, but with a central focus on the maternity services.

About the review team

We are a small team with established expertise in maternity services design, organisation, experiences and outcomes.

We are based in the Centre for Maternal, Reproductive and Child Health, School of Health and Medical Sciences at City St. George’s, University of London.

The Centre’s research programmes are international and include a focus on:

• models of care
• perinatal mental health
• assisted reproduction
• public health and inequalities in maternal and child health.

Our work on models of care has included research on clinical and psychological outcomes of different care models, community-based design and implementation of innovative care approaches along with evaluation of their outcomes.

Professor Christine McCourt, Professor of Maternal and Child Health

Christine is Professor of Maternal and Child Health at City St George’s where she leads the Centre for Maternal and Child Health Research.

Her key interests are in service providers’ and users’ experiences of care, the culture and organisation of care and application of anthropological theory and methodology to healthcare, particularly in researching complex interventions, implementation of evidence-based practice and service change and improvement.

Recent research has focused on informed choice and care experiences, place of birth, induction of labour, group care and continuity of carer models and on approaches to improve equity as well as quality and safety in care. In addition to research, she has extensive experience of project management and supervision of postgraduate and doctoral studies.

Through all this work, her primary interest is in research and education to serve excellent healthcare practice and experience.

Dr Anita Mehay, Senior Research Fellow

Dr Anita Mehay is a Senior Research Fellow and registered Health Psychologist at City St George’s. Her research focuses on health inequities, particularly those affecting racially minoritised and underserved children and families. She specialises in applied research on complex health and social interventions, with expertise in mixed-methods evaluation, evidence synthesis, participatory research and co-production. Her work has included large-scale evaluations of family and community interventions including the REACH Pregnancy Programme focused on addressing inequalities in maternity care and outcomes.

Anita has also worked in policy research and has a strong interest in translating evidence into policy and practice. She is a specialist reviewer for the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), a member of the NIHR Research Programme for Social Care (RPSC) funding committee, and a member of the UK Government’s Evaluation and Trial Advice Panel (ETAP).

Louisa Hope Jackson (Hope). Co-ordinator

Louisa Hope Jackson (Hope) worked as a midwife in Maine, USA, for 15 years. Alongside her clinical practice, she contributed to writing and enacting Maine’s first licensing law for Certified Professional Midwives and Certified Midwives.

Hope holds an MSc in Global Maternal Health. She was project coordinator and a co-author for the 2026 European Midwifery Unit Standards, working with a research team and an international advisory group to review the evidence and develop standards designed for use in different settings across Europe and the UK.

Hope has also led the development and pilot of the European Midwifery Unit Accreditation (EMUA) framework. She works as a Visiting Lecturer supporting graduate students undertaking implementation placements in various local and international maternity care settings.

Hope is passionate about strengthening access to evidence-based maternity care. She is particularly focused on co-production and the inclusion of a full range of voices and experiences in supporting sustainable maternity services that deliver safe, respectful care.

To contact the review team please email ScotlandMaternityReview@citystgeorges.ac.uk.