Poppy’s Promise: Turning Listening Into Safer Maternity Care Across the NHS

In The Conversation, Katie Flood tells the story of Poppy Russell, who died 12 hours after birth due to a brain injury sustained during delivery, and how her parents, Neil and Katie Russell, turned tragedy into action with Poppy’s Promise. The NHS trust is rolling out the four principles—compassion, acknowledgement, respect and empowerment—to thousands of staff as part of a broader national effort following Baroness Valerie Amos's maternity investigation. The piece argues that listening must become a routine, system-wide part of care, not a one-off task.

• Empathy is more than kindness; it involves understanding a patient perspective and taking appropriate action.
• Poor communication contributes to harm; better systems are needed, not just better individuals.
• Poppy’s Promise provides a practical framework with education, recruitment and leadership components to embed listening in care.
• Early pilot studies show improvements in empathy, but larger, controlled evaluations are needed to confirm effects on outcomes.

Overview

The article centers on the death of Poppy Russell, who lived only 12 hours after birth following a brain injury during delivery at the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford. An inquest judged the death preventable, and the hospital trust faced public scrutiny for blaming Katie Russell for alleged fetal monitoring refusals, a claim later found to be untrue. In response, Neil and Katie Russell have partnered with the hospital to implement Poppy’s Promise, a patient-centered framework built on four principles: compassion, acknowledgement, respect and empowerment. The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust plans to roll this out across about 8,000 staff. The piece situates this local initiative within a national context, noting Baroness Valerie Amos’s national maternity and neonatal services investigation and the anticipated December national action plan to improve care through listening.

Poppy's Promise: four principles

Poppy’s Promise is described as a practical embodiment of listening in care, designed to be woven into daily hospital operations rather than treated as an add-on. Its implementation programme addresses education, recruitment, staff training, patient interactions and feedback, while also tackling leadership and workplace culture. The aim is to make listening a routine part of hospital functioning and decision-making, ensuring concerns are acknowledged and acted upon.

Empathy as part of safe care

The article expands empathy beyond mere kindness, defining it as the ability to understand a patient’s perspective, ask clarifying questions, and take useful action. In Katie’s case this would have meant uncovering why she feared childbirth, identifying what would make her feel safe, and offering options such as revised birth plans or closer monitoring. The author notes that empathy can entail reassurance, symptom investigation, and escalation of concerns when needed, with the underlying goal of improving patient safety.

Systemic barriers and leadership

The text references the Amos review, which highlighted systemic issues including staffing shortages and burnout. It argues that asking overstretched staff to be more empathic without addressing root causes is unlikely to succeed. Therefore, empathic healthcare systems must be supported by strong leadership, effective teamwork, healthy workloads and an organizational culture that values patient voices as part of everyday practice.

Evidence and evaluation

The article cites a BMJ Open Quality study describing a programme to improve empathy in NHS maternity services. Of 177 maternity staff who participated, 76% reported improvements in empathy, and seven proposals for organizational change emerged, some of which were adopted. However, the study was small and lacked a control group, so it cannot demonstrate improved patient outcomes. A larger, controlled evaluation is planned to assess impact on safety and experience more robustly.

Implementation, outcomes and the road ahead

While research can guide approaches, the piece emphasizes that Poppy’s Promise is a family-led, hospital-driven effort that complements formal investigations and national policy developments. It argues that success should not be measured solely by staff completing training, but by whether women feel heard, concerns are acted on, staff feel supported, and harm to mothers and babies decreases. The overarching message is a call for healthcare organizations to create conditions that enable empathic care as a core aspect of safe, high-quality maternity services.

Conclusion

The article closes with a vision of a maternity system where every woman is listened to and her concerns are taken seriously, reflecting the belief that empathy is essential to safety and service quality in the NHS.