RECOMMENDATIONS for major change to ensure maternity care is safer for mothers and babies have been formally accepted by the Government.

Health minister Jeremy Hunt today acknowledged a series of improvements - set out within the controversial Morecambe Bay Investigation Report - must be made to the nationwide system.

The move has been welcomed by families who lost loved ones within Barrow’s shamed maternity unit as well as politicians and healthcare leaders across the country.

The Morecambe Bay Investigation report, published in March, concluded 11 babies and one mother died unnecessarily during childbirth at Furness General Hospital, while others suffered preventable harm, between 2004 and 2013.

They included Dalton newborn Joshua Titcombe, who died aged just nine days old in 2008 from a preventable infection, as well as little Alex Davey-Brady who was stillborn at FGH the same year following failures in care.

It is hoped the implementation of the recommendations, set out within the document by Dr Bill Kirkup, will prevent a similar tragedy, which saw failings at all levels within the hospital and regulatory systems, unfolding elsewhere in the country.

Barrow and Furness MP John Woodcock said it was right that the recommendations were given full, cross party backing.

“It is absolutely right and very welcome that both the Government and the Labour party is today accepting in full the recommendations of the Morecambe Bay Investigation report.

“This is another great step in the long quest by families to ensure the needless death and suffering of their loved ones leads to a change of culture in our hospital and across the NHS.”

Mr Woodcock added: “We just need to take time to study the details of the Government’s report today.

“I will continue to push for fast and genuine progress on behalf of all of us who need our hospitals to be safe, open and transparent.”