Woman's Hour

Zadie Smith’s newest book, ‘Intimations’, was written during the early months of lockdown. It is a series of personal essays reflecting on the unprecedented situation of a worldwide pandemic, hoping to provoke readers to reflect on what has happened and what might come next. Maternity care is to be the first focus of an independent new panel set up by the Health and Social Care Committee to give ratings to pledges made by the government. Ros Bragg from Maternity Action talks about what she would expect to be looked at, and the Chair of the new panel, Dame Jane Dacre, Professor of Medical Edcation at University College London, explains how patients’ experience will form a part of this evaluation.In a new series we’re talking to women about their scars. They all talk about physical and emotional pain and the business of having to deal with other people’s reactions on a day to day basis and of coming to terms with the skin they are in. Today, Emily’s story. Xuefei Yang is one of the world’s leading classical gui