Mental Health First Aid in the Workplace

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Thursday 17th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Johnny Mercer]

The hon. Lady is right. There is no point in getting people to come forward and talk about mental health, which can be very difficult, if we do not have the services or access to them to help them, after they have made themselves vulnerable in that way. That is why I am so keen to keep our foot to the gas and ensure that we start delivering on this. We have made progress—that is undeniable—but clearly there is a long way to go, and I will come on to that.

I want to address the point about legislation. As someone who does a lot of work in the armed forces community and on the armed forces covenant, I know that people will say, “Why legislate?” I have learnt in this place that we can have a number of good ideas and initiatives that we can encourage people to do but, ultimately, this is too big a challenge to be left to personalities involved in companies at different times. Sometimes we have to legislate for it. This is not a problem for the companies that already do this, but sometimes the most vulnerable people in our communities deserve the Government legislating and letting them know that we are on side.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I am sorry that I was not here for the beginning of the speech by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger). I was having my own health and wellbeing check with our excellent service here. The practice nurse was particularly keen to know about my stress levels, given the experience we have all had in the last week, but I am good for another few years.

My hon. Friend may know that I am the co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on mindfulness, which is a simple way of looking after employees’ mental health. Before Christmas, we held a seminar here involving military figures. He knows, from his experience, the high level of mental health issues among that group. I am glad to say that the Army is now seriously looking at how this measure can be introduced, and why wouldn’t it? This is a win-win situation: if an employer looks after its employees and its workforce, they tend to do a better job, and they look after the company or Army unit better as well.

[Johnny Mercer]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. He is right; the military has come a long way. It gets a hard time, but the Army in particular has come a long way on the importance of mindfulness and how much easier it is to keep a healthy mind than get better from a mental illness. I thank him for all the work he does on that. We all come to this place for different reasons, but there is no doubt that the mental health challenge of a decade and a half of combat operations has ripped apart the circle of friends that I grew up with, so I have a real passion for getting this right.

As the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree says, we need to look at this in a slightly different way in this country. We are very good in this place at talking from the Front Bench about what we are putting into services in terms of money and priority, and that is extremely important, but we need to turn the telescope around and ask what it actually feels like to be in the community waiting for access to child and adolescent mental health services or mental health treatment. That is the true metric of what we do in this place. I strongly encourage the Government to look at that approach.

Why am I so interested in this? As everybody now knows, I have had OCD for a long time. Obviously, I like to pretend that it is some sort of distant memory, but my close friends and family know that it is not. It is much better, but there is no doubt that, if there had been mental health first aid when I was a boy, growing up and going into the military, my life would have been completely changed. We cannot underestimate how important it is to intervene early, when someone is so much more likely to get better. I will never forget the Saturday afternoon when I ended up in the Maudsley, thinking, “How did I end up here? How did this all start?” If policies like this had been talked about 20 years ago, millions of lives would have been very different.

I talk about this because it sends a powerful message: you can get better. People think that they are managing their mental health for the rest of their life, they reach their zenith and that is it. I cannot over-emphasise how wrong that is. Clearly managing a mental health challenge is a difficulty, but it can absolutely be done, and the chances of doing that are exponentially increased by early intervention. If we can get into workplaces and say to people, “We take mental health as seriously as physical health,” we will affect millions of lives, which is ultimately what we come to this place every week to do.

I pay tribute again to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree and the right hon. Member for North Norfolk, who have done a lot of the heavy lifting on this. There are not many people here today, but in some ways, that does not matter. There will be people following this intensely because they have a mental health challenge. They may be 15, 16 or 17-year-old young boys, like I was, who never talk about it and who learn about what is going on through their phone but do not even talk to their parents. When I spoke about my OCD in the Evening Standard, I had loads of phone calls the next day, but the best one was from a 16-year-old boy who said he had never spoken to his parents or anyone about it.

There will be a lot of people watching this debate who were devastated when it was cancelled before Christmas. They are the people we are here for, and that is why people like me speak out. It is not easy to speak about individual issues in this House, but I want to say to boys and girls who are watching this now and may be struggling: don’t think for a minute that because there are not lots of people here, and there is not the raucous shouting that we have seen in the last few days, this is in any way less important to many of us in this place. Just because we are quieter, it does not mean that we do not hear you.

There is a mental health revolution going on in this country—we have seen it start and people are talking about it. The Government have committed to parity of esteem. We are flicking over from meeting one in four mental health needs at the moment to one in three. Clearly there is a big unmet need and we have further to go, but it is an unstoppable direction of travel, and today is another point on that march.

I sincerely hope that the Government can take forward these recommendations. I slightly disagree with the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree only on one point: parity of esteem does mean something. However, she is right: it does not if people in our communities do not feel it. It is not good enough here to say, “Parity of esteem is a wonderful thing. Haven’t we done well? We’ve put it into Government legislation.” It is meaningless unless the people who use the services actually feel like they are treated in the same way and have the same access to treatments as those with physical health problems. I commend the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree and the right hon. Member for North Norfolk for the march we are taking on this, together with the stuff we have done on money and mental health. In this Parliament of immense turbulence, for those who are watching—the quieter ones, whom I have spoken about—this march will continue. They have some wonderful advocates in this place and we keep going.

Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Thursday 17th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Bill Esterson]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention which prompts me to cite a recent study from the Washington State University. Its foetal alcohol syndrome diagnostic and prevention network has identified that foetuses can experience vastly different FASD outcomes despite being exposed to identical amounts of alcohol—which is what happens with twins. There is no way of predicting what will happen, and its conclusion, which I am glad to see the chief medical officer now accepts, is that the only safe amount to drink is “none at all”.

I am asking that the chief medical officer’s advice and guidance, which has now been accepted by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence as well, be given much greater prominence and that we build awareness so that everyone understands it, especially, but not exclusively, health professionals. I am asking that we have a proper study of incidence so that we need not rely on the limited evidence of the Bristol University study. It was only able to make rough estimates, given the nature of its research, but if it is between 6% and 17%, it really does need that intervention and prevalence study.

We have to build greater understanding among health professionals and professionals right across the public sector. I have mentioned support as well. There needs to be greater support for those living with FASD—both those suffering from it and those caring for them— and those in education and elsewhere who are looking after them.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for all the work he has done raising the profile of this condition. He knows I support him through the all-party group, and he knows of the experiences I have had with children’s homes in Denmark, which very much pioneered the work here, because of the alcohol problems among residents of Greenland and others. He is absolutely right that many of our children in the care system are directly affected by this. Does he agree that we have to get much better at giving clear advice, as we now do on smoking and its impact on lungs? We need a similar campaign to make absolutely clear to women exactly what the risks are to their unborn children if they continue to drink, as many of them will do.

[Bill Esterson]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to draw the comparison with smoking. There is no way anybody does not understand that you do not smoke when you are pregnant. We need the same cultural understanding of the effect of alcohol.

I am very pleased that the chief medical officer listened to the all-party group’s advice in the inquiry that we held when we published our report at the end of 2015 and that the guidance is now right and advises women not to drink at all if they are pregnant or planning to conceive. NICE caught up last year, but many people, including some health professionals, still regard the previous guidance as relevant. There is a question mark for many. They think, “If the advice previously was one or two drinks, maybe it’s still okay”. It is not, and we need to make that clear.

The country has a history in this respect going back many years. A glass of Guinness used to be thought a good idea for pregnant women because of the iron.

Baby Loss Awareness Week

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Tuesday 9th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

I wish to join my colleagues in commending the Members who have so bravely recounted their own experiences of baby loss here tonight and at last year’s baby loss debate. As many have said, the loss of a baby is one that no parent should ever have to bear. I am fortunate not to have suffered such a loss, but as a children’s doctor I have, unfortunately, been the bearer of such bad news on too many occasions.

In my experience, the first reaction of a parent confronted with the tragic death of a baby is to ask, “Why? Why did this happen? Why my child? Why me?” In these agonising circumstances, answers as to why this situation has occurred can help to provide respite. The second reaction, one that is testament to the incredible empathy human beings have, even in the most difficult circumstances, is the desire to ensure that lessons are learned from their personal tragedy so that no one else has to endure that same heartbreak. I am in awe of colleagues, such as those here this evening, who have been through such a traumatic experience and found the strength not just to share that experience, but to use it to campaign successfully for improvements in care and to highlight areas to improve so that others do not experience such suffering in the future. I commend the work of the all-party group and my hon. Friends the Members for Colchester (Will Quince), for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) and for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) for their work to develop the bereavement care pathway. I have worked in hospitals where there has been excellent bereavement care, with the bereavement suite that has been described, and in others where the care has been less well developed, and I have seen the importance of the national bereavement care pathway. I congratulate them on it.

Although he is no longer in his seat, I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) on his private Member’s Bill, which has developed child bereavement leave. As my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester has said, it will enable mothers to have an extra two weeks of maternity leave and fathers to have a doubling of their leave—some extra time to reflect and be at home with their family.

One recent improvement that the Government have made is the introduction of independent investigations by the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch, which will look at every case of stillbirth or life-changing injury. That will help to meet the needs of parents in respect of that first question—“Why did this happen?”—and to prevent it from happening again. When the lessons are disseminated throughout the health service, doctors and midwives will be able to learn from previous experience to ensure that problems do not occur in future. It will be important—I look to the Minister to respond on this—to ensure that health professionals can speak openly in investigations without fear of blame. A blame culture will deter people from speaking openly and prevent improvements to patient safety. I have spoken numerous times in the Chamber about patient safety, and I am hopeful that the national roll-out of investigations will help us to meet the NHS’s goal of becoming the safest healthcare system in the world in which to give birth.

One development in neonatal care that I have seen in my 17 years of practice is the increasing centralisation of neonatal care, with the smallest and sickest infants now transported to specialist centres. I have worked in these centres and, although they provide exceptional care, they are often many miles away from the hospital where the child was first admitted or where the family live. For example, if a baby’s family live in Sleaford and North Hykeham, their nearest tertiary centre is in Nottingham. If the centre in Nottingham is full, the family may be sent many hours away to Norwich, Sheffield or Leicester. For working families on low incomes, the need to visit their sick baby several hours away imposes significant travel costs. Some families go through intense financial difficulty to meet that need to travel, while others have the distress of being physically unable to travel to see their baby as often as they would wish because they do not have the money to get to the tertiary centres. I raised the very same issue in the debate last year and would be interested to hear an update from the Minister on any measures being taken to help struggling families, many of whom work, to meet the travel costs in such an extremely distressing situation.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

My hon. Friend makes a good point about safety. In respect of smaller hospitals retaining maternity services, some years ago there was an attempt to downgrade Worthing Hospital and St Richard’s Hospital, such that they would lose their maternity departments and the service would be centralised in Brighton or Portsmouth. Fortunately, we defeated those proposals, and Worthing maternity department is now rated outstanding. It is also rated as the safest maternity department in the country; indeed, many mums now come from Brighton to Worthing because of its success. There is clearly a case for larger specialised hospitals for particular ailments and problems that need specialist treatment, but in most cases we need a good-quality, safe and trusted maternity service closer to where the parents live.

[Dr Johnson]

I congratulate the hospital in Worthing for its outstanding success. My hon. Friend is right that there is a balance to be struck between the centralisation of care for babies who require very low-volume but high-specialist care, and the need for care to be delivered as close as is reasonably practical to the individual family concerned. That is true of all medical specialties, really. In the case of neonates, we probably have the balance roughly right, but a trend may be starting whereby people ask for things to be centralised that in my perception do not really need to be centralised. As a professional, I often see babies who are not returned to the step-down care as quickly as they could be. Babies are sometimes kept in the tertiary centres for longer than is absolutely necessary. There are complex reasons for that, but I would be grateful if the Minister looked into the issue so that babies can be returned closer to home as soon as possible.

I welcome the Government’s ambitious aims to halve the rate of stillbirths and neonatal deaths by 2025. That will be possible only by reducing the number of pre-term deliveries, which are the leading cause of neonatal death in the UK. The Department of Health and Social Care’s goal of reducing pre-term birth from 8% to 6% will require a lot more research and intervention. We have a healthier population of women, but the number of pre-term babies continues to increase. More funding is needed for pregnancy research, and particularly for research into the causes of pre-eclampsia, cervical length and infections such as group B strep, as well as for the identification of small babies with early scanning. There must also be more work to discourage smoking, which we already know is an established risk factor for pre-term delivery. I welcome the previous Secretary of State’s saying in November 2017 that the Government will reduce smoking during pregnancy from 10.6% to 6% and raise awareness of foetal movement. All those things will contribute towards the reduction of the number of neonatal deaths and stillbirths. Through that work, the Government are best placed to meet their “halve it” aim, and in doing so save 4,000 lives.

Finally, I wish to discuss those babies who die in the post-neonatal period—that is, under the age of one but after 28 days of life. Currently, 1.1 in every 1,000 babies die in the post-neonatal period. The major reason is babies having congenital malformations, and the second most common reason is sudden infant death, the rate of which has recently increased, although the cause is not clear. What is the Minister doing to identify the reasons for the recent increase in sudden infant deaths? What is being done to prevent the number of sudden infant deaths from rising further and, indeed, to bring it down?

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Tuesday 24th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We published information on this issue just last week. We absolutely will consult the Scottish Government and all interested stakeholders. It is a very important matter to get right.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

T5. Last year, 7.3 million people were prescribed antidepressants, including more than 70,000 children. That is an increase of more than 500% in the past 20 years. In welcoming the Secretary of State’s announcement on social prescribing, may I, as co-chair of the all-party group on mindfulness, ask him what part mindfulness and other evidence-based non-drug options will play in the strategy? Would he like to undertake a mindfulness course, and in doing so join the now more than 150 other MPs and Lords who have done so at Westminster?

[Matt Hancock]

I would be absolutely thrilled to. I have previously participated in mindfulness training. In fact, the former chairman of my local Conservative association became a mindfulness instructor, which shows how much we take it seriously locally. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s work on this issue. He will have seen that, even in my first two weeks in this role I have already spoken out in favour of moves towards social prescribing and the broader prescribing of less intervention and less medicinal methods, where possible, because medicines do of course have their place. The work that he has done on this issue over many years is to be applauded.

NHS Outsourcing and Privatisation

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Ashworth]

The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) seems so desperately keen that I will take his intervention and then I will hear from Ashfield and make some progress.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I am really grateful to the shadow Minister. Under the last Labour Government, before Worthing became the outstanding hospital it is now, there was a long list of patients requiring hip and knee replacements. To speed up the list, the hospital contracted with a local private hospital. Those patients were treated much more speedily, at least to the same quality, and actually at a lower cost per patient than if it had been done in-house— and, of course, the patients did not have to pay a penny themselves. Is that the sort of privatisation the hon. Gentleman so opposes?

[Jonathan Ashworth]

I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that no, it is not. I agree with the Secretary of State that the

“use of the independent sector to bring waiting times down and raise standards is not privatisation.”

They were the words of the Secretary of State when he spoke at his own party conference the other year. The Labour Government did spot-purchase from the private sector to bring down the huge waiting lists that we inherited in 1997; but our concern is about contracts for delivery of healthcare services being handed out to private sector providers who not only provide poor quality to patients but give the taxpayer a poor deal. It is a different situation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

We are becoming increasingly conscious of drinks with additional unnatural stimulants and their impact on people’s health generally, but obviously that becomes more acute with children’s health, so we will look more closely at it. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has highlighted the initiatives that have been taken by individual retailers, because it is up to them to implement good practice.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the best way to achieve strong health and good mental health for children is at the very earliest stages and through forming a strong attachment between that child and their parent in the first 1,001 days from conception? If so, why is there not more in the mental health Green Paper about perinatal mental health?

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

The Green Paper very much focuses on what we are doing in schools, but my hon. Friend is absolutely right. He highlights the earliest of early intervention, and one reason why we are investing so much more in perinatal mental health is to ensure that the bonds between mother and baby are as strong as they can possibly be.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I will call the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) if his question is shorter than his tie.

[Tim Loughton]

Lipoedema affects 10% of women in this country, many without a diagnosis, so why are an increasing number of my constituents saying they cannot get any therapeutic interventions funded by the CCG? Will the Minister meet a delegation of those people and other hon. Members similarly affected?

[Steve Brine]

Yes, of course I will meet my short-tied hon. Friend with the delegation he requests.

Social Care

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

The whole purpose of a Green Paper is to allow us properly to debate and challenge all options available. I am interested in what has happened in Scotland. The hon. Gentleman says that personal care is met by the Government there, but the lion’s share of costs for the elderly is of course the residential component, which is not met by the Scottish Government. We need to make sure that we are learning from the experience of everybody not only in these four nations, but across the world.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I appreciate the importance the Government attach to adult social care, but the title of this statement is “Social Care” and, as the Minister knows, I have a strong interest in children’s social care. At a time when the number of children coming into care continues to rise, the thresholds for intervention are rising and preventive work is I fear going south. As the number of adoptions has also diminished, will she and the Government reassure me that they attach the same importance to dealing with the challenges faced by children’s social care services up and down the country at the current time?

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

I absolutely give my hon. Friend that assurance. If I may, I will suggest to my hon. Friends in the Department for Education that they respond to him on those points.

Maternity Safety Strategy

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Tuesday 28th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I am happy to recommit to that. I apologise to the hon. Lady and her constituents for the delay. I will look into what happened right away.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

The hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) pre-empted my question about my Bill and coroners. I make the offer to sit down with the Secretary of State and his draftsman to decide on the wording of my private Member’s Bill, which will be debated on 2 February, as the fastest way to achieve his goals and get the solution that all Members of the House want.

[Mr Hunt]

I am happy to do that and am most grateful for that very generous offer.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Tuesday 14th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

That is absolutely our intention. We have signalled to the EU and to European countries that we want the closest possible relationship post-Brexit. We have made that big and generous offer, and we hope that they accept it.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

T3. Thank you, Mr Officer Dibble Speaker. In my constituency we have the outstanding-rated Worthing Hospital and some outstanding GP practices, but we also have the Sussex and East Surrey sustainability and transformation plan, which has been rated in category 4 —“needs most improvement”. Part of the problem is that it is too big and does not follow a natural footprint. Will the Minister support local calls for it to be withdrawn, and help to make it fit for purpose and sustainable?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Steve Brine)]

Sustainability and transformation plan footprints were determined as a result of discussions between local areas, NHS England and NHS Improvement. They reflect a number of factors including patient flow, the location of different organisations in the local health economy and natural geographies. We stated in the next steps of the “Five Year Forward View” that adjusting STP boundaries is open to discussions between us and NHS England when that is collectively requested by local organisations, and we mean that.

Baby Loss Awareness Week

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Tuesday 10th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

Thank you for calling me, Mr Deputy Speaker, although I have to say it is not a pleasure to speak in today’s debate. It is absolute torture for many of the speakers who have chosen to share their experiences with the House. It is, however, a pleasure to follow the extremely knowledgeable speech, as ever, of the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford). It is so good to hear the good news from Scotland about the real developments that have come from investigation into what happens when things go wrong.

I am most grateful to business managers—even if I am quite close to some of them—for allocating time during Baby Loss Awareness Week, and to all those who organised the extension of today’s sitting. It is a testament to the way the House has changed. I am grateful that you, Mr Deputy Speaker, have chosen to be in the Chair after your traumatic experiences last year listening to us. We are most grateful to all those who have enabled this debate.

It is fair to say that maternal safety keeps me awake at night. Issues with the maternity unit at Horton General Hospital in my constituency sadly continue. It is good to see my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Robert Courts) in his place. I do not know what keeps him awake at night. Indeed, I do not know whether he is kept awake at night. If he is, I suspect his young son probably has something to do with it, but I also know that he worries as much as I do about the future of the unit. The uncertainty goes on. My hon. Friend, other campaigners and I are not giving in. I remain convinced that the current situation is unsafe. Significant numbers of transfers are taking place during labour. Babies have been born at the side of the road and in ambulances. Mothers and their babies are not getting the sort of care that is safe, kind and close to home, which is what everybody in the Chamber wills them to get.

Out of this morass sadly comes some dreadful casework. I have noticed that when something goes wrong, the shutters come down in the health service. Hospitals are on the defensive from the beginning and legal teams are called in. In one of the saddest cases I have had to deal with over the past year, Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust responded by saying that it would not meet me or the family in question without legal representation. My attempts to ensure that there was a full and external review of the case by MBRRACE-UK, for example, were stalled for months. This is simply not acceptable. Families, along with most of us, are motivated by a burning desire to ensure that what happened to us will not happen again. They are not interested in compensation except where that is necessary for looking after a desperately sick child. They are motivated by change in practice.

Sir Charles Pollard, the former chief constable of Thames Valley police, has been working tirelessly on producing restorative solutions in the justice sector—that is my background—and increasingly in the health sector, where the needs of all parties, including families, doctors and staff, are crucial. Constructive conversations can be had in carefully controlled environments. I think, particularly after having a lengthy conversation with my hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson), that it is important to find a new language. We do not want to apportion blame to anyone in any way, unlike in the justice sector. Finding a new language would be good for families and for staff, who are often traumatised by a loss on their watch.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

There have been some exceptional speeches on this sensitive issue. I am not sure whether my hon. Friend is aware that my private Member’s Bill—the Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration Etc.) Bill—includes a clause to give coroners the power to investigate late-term stillbirths. Extraordinarily, that is currently not available to them. Many parents who have gone through difficult stillbirths where the circumstances are unclear would like an independent assessment of what went wrong so that everybody can learn from the situation. I am sure my hon. Friend will support that.

[Victoria Prentis]

I will most certainly support that.

The hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) made an excellent speech in which she mentioned inquests and fatal accident inquiries. I do not know why so many of us involved in this debate are lawyers; it is very strange. These are, of course, very sensitive legal issues. We are talking about when a person becomes a person—things that we have not spoken about in places such as Parliament or the courts, and perhaps should have done, over the years. We have allowed a body of law to grow up that does not fit current requirements. Even though restorative solutions are great, inquests may also be appropriate and may also act restoratively. They do not have to be legalistic. They can be inquisitive, which is why inquests came into being. Inquests and, in Scotland, fatal accidents inquiries, have an important part to play in preventing stillbirths and neonatal deaths.

Today is World Mental Health Day, so it is particularly appropriate that we are talking about the bereavement care pathway in Baby Loss Awareness Week. As we have heard from other hon. Members, the pathway is very good in places but variable in others. We are making progress but we need to do more to ensure consistency, and I know the Minister is on top of this. The Care Quality Commission does not currently ask sufficiently in-depth questions about the quality of bereavement care on offer, but I am encouraged by the constructive conversations I have had with it on behalf of the all-party parliamentary group on baby loss recently and am hopeful that we will have real progress to report this time next year.

I would like to end on a high. Petals opened its new bereavement counselling service in Banbury yesterday, in the Horton General Hospital, and I was very pleased to be there. It offers bereaved families six sessions per couple. That might not be enough, and it certainly might not be appropriate for mothers and fathers to be seen together, but the evidence shows that what it does is of very real value and that its outcomes are valuable and beneficial to the couples who use its service. Lots of charities do similar work, as is clear from our well-attended APPG meetings.

We might not enjoy these debates, but they have begun to change both perceptions and the law, and I am grateful to the Minister and the previous Member for Ipswich for all their work. I would like to finish by congratulating us all.