Mrs Maria Banks

Mrs Maria Banks is an Audit and Assurance Midwife at North Cheshire and Mersey NHS Foundation Trust, a role she has held since June 2023, and an expert witness. Her principal areas of expertise include antenatal, intrapartum and postnatal care, maternity triage, clinical governance, maternity risk management, patient safety and quality improvement.

With over nine years’ post-registration experience across tertiary and district general maternity services, Mrs Banks has a broad understanding of maternity care across the patient pathway. Her current practice has a particular focus on clinical governance and assurance, including the review of clinical incidents and maternity records, audit, guideline development and assessment of practice against local and national standards.

Mrs Banks works closely with senior leadership teams to provide assurance against national maternity standards and contributes to multidisciplinary governance processes. She has substantial experience undertaking detailed case reviews and identifying learning to improve patient safety and quality of care. Her expertise in evidence-based maternity practice is further demonstrated by her contribution as an author to the North West Regional Guideline for Maternal Sepsis.

Mrs Maria Banks has undertaken medico-legal work since 2026, accepting claimant instructions in clinical negligence, Coroner’s Inquests and professional regulatory and fitness to practise matters. She provides screening and advisory opinions and reports addressing breach of duty, causation, and condition and prognosis.

Her medico-legal expertise centres on maternity care, with particular relevance to antenatal, intrapartum and postnatal care, maternity triage, clinical incidents, patient safety and compliance with professional standards and guidance. Her experience in detailed review of maternity records enables her to evaluate the care provided against accepted practice, identify relevant issues within the clinical chronology and provide clear, evidence-based opinion on the standard of maternity care and its relationship to the outcome in question.

Mrs Banks’ current practice centres on the review and assurance of maternity care across the antenatal, intrapartum and postnatal pathway. She has particular expertise in maternity triage, clinical incident review and the assessment of whether care is consistent with evidence-based guidance, documentation requirements and established maternity standards.

A significant part of her work involves analysing clinical records and incidents to identify patient safety concerns, areas for improvement and learning within maternity services. She contributes to Perinatal Mortality Review Tool assessments and multidisciplinary governance processes, applying her knowledge of maternity care to detailed reviews of complex clinical information.

Her practice also encompasses maternity risk management, audit and quality improvement, with a particular focus on guideline and policy compliance. This includes reviewing and developing clinical guidance and assessing maternity services against national standards to support safe, consistent and evidence-based care.