A fourth midwife described a “frightening place to work”, where shifts were frantic and standards could slip - while a fifth recalled having been the only person on shift capable of analysing babies’ heart rates using a monitoring machine.

She remembers “running in and out of people’s rooms” and fearing a mother or baby would die because of a lack of appropriate staff. “Sometimes we’d work all night without food or a loo break. People were exhausted.”