Maternity scandals could cost the NHS one billion pounds a year as the Shrewsbury fallout widens.
NHS England officials have warned the Government that the price must be paid to prevent more deaths of babies and mums.
Training thousands of extra midwives and doctors specialising in pregnancy will contribute to the staggering sum.
Officials came up with the £1bn target following the damning Government inquiry by senior midwife Donna Ockenden into more than 200 deaths at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust.
One senior NHS manager said: “She is challenging the Government to deliver by digging deep and spending what’s needed to protect women and their babies from harm.”
Ms Ockenden warned that the scandal that spread over decades in Shropshire is not isolated and that there are similar maternity failings across the NHS.
She details 15 immediate and essential actions for all trusts in England providing maternity services. They include better training to prevent rogue midwives taking charge and not listening to mums’ worries about their babies.
Independent reviews of maternity services are under way at Nottingham University Hospitals and East Kent Hospitals Trust where a similar pattern to the Shrewsbury scandal has allegedly emerged.
Ministers had promised maternity reforms in 2015 after the Morecambe Bay scandal when 12 babies and one mum died.
