Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to address health inequalities on the basis of gender, race, and economic class; what their key priorities are in doing so; and what steps they will take to measure success.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government is dedicated to building a fairer, more equal society by addressing the structural inequalities that drive poor health outcomes, especially for disadvantaged groups.

Our Health Mission in England will focus on addressing the social determinants of health, with the goal of halving the gap in healthy life expectancy between the richest and poorest regions.

We are committed to prioritising women’s health as we build a National Health Service fit for the future. We are also taking action on the range of conditions that particularly affect men, including heart disease, liver disease, and cancer.

The Government is also committed to closing the black and Asian maternal mortality gap. Recognising the need for health inequalities to be central to all policy making, our health inequalities work has a renewed focus to bring together policy experts to reduce racial inequalities across health.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they have any plans to introduce league tables for NHS trusts; and if so, (1) what the league tables will be based on, and (2) what metrics will be taken into account.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

We are putting in place a robust package of reforms to help tackle the National Health Service crisis. There will be no more rewards for failure. This includes a comprehensive review of NHS performance across the entire country, with providers to be placed into a league table. This will be made public and regularly updated to ensure transparency for the public, and a clear basis for addressing failure. We expect this will include a range of metrics looking at both providers and systems, and further detail will be set out at the earliest opportunity.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the findings in the Care Quality Commission's 2024 Maternity Survey; and what plans they have to address those areas where the survey reported an increase in poor maternity experiences.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Care Quality Commission’s 2024 Maternity Survey indicates that women’s experiences of maternity services have mostly either remained similar to 2023, or have shown small levels of decline. Whilst there have been improvements to some areas of maternity and neonatal care provision, such as mental health support during pregnancy, we recognise that the survey shows that women are not always receiving the standard of care they should expect.

NHS England’s three-year delivery plan for maternity and neonatal services continues to make progress in delivering important improvements for services. For example, all women who have given birth now receive a six-to-eight-week postnatal check-up, and Specialist Perinatal Mental Health Services now have full population coverage to support women with, or at risk of, mental health issues, with a range of treatments including support clinics, talking therapies, and pre-conception advice.

The Government recognises the need to go further to ensure that women get the maternity care they deserve, and will use the results of this survey to help inform its next steps on improving maternity and neonatal care.

Found: Letter dated 02/12/2024 from Lord Livermore to Baroness Manzoor regarding clarity around the responsibility