Baby Loss and Safe Staffing in Maternity Care

Alicia Kearns Excerpts

Tuesday 25th October 2022 Westminster Hall

[Jill Mortimer]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Sadly, that is not a matter for me as I am not a Minister; it will be for the Minister to reply to that.

Will the Minister look at training more bereavement midwives? Sands has developed the national bereavement care pathway, which provides the framework and tools to ensure that all health professionals are adequately equipped to provide the standard of bereavement care so sorely needed during the immediate aftermath of pregnancy or baby loss. That would prevent women like me, 30 years on, from hearing those same lines; health professionals would understand that, kind as they are meant, they do not help in the long term.

[Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)]

I thank my very good friend for her work on this issue. On the point about discrepancy, in my constituency a baby died—it was negligence—and the mother was sent home with four leaflets and never contacted again by the hospital. By contrast, my very best friend lost her baby at nine months in January—as Members can see, we all grieve when we lose someone that close to us—and she had phenomenal care from Tommy’s. Will my hon. Friend press the Minister to do all she can to ensure that there are national guidelines against which the NHS is held to account, monitored and graded for how it provides bereavement care?

[Jill Mortimer]

I thank my hon. Friend; she must not apologise because obviously this issue is very close to us all. We feel very deeply for all mothers who lose. That is one thing that I wish to ask the Minister to do: will she ask the Government to mandate the national bereavement care pathway so that it is nationwide? Although 105 trusts are already formally committed to rolling it out, they need the additional funding to fully implement all the standards of the NBCP. It is no good just taking part of it; we need it all in place and all midwives need to have that training. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that all trusts can implement this vital support service?

Those are the three big asks. I know they are big, that times are not great and that there are not funds, but this is such a vital policy area and so much long-term pain could be caused. I thank Members for their time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Guy Opperman]

It is a perfectly fair point that there is a difference of approach in the different countries of the great United Kingdom, and I utterly agree that if someone lives in the United Kingdom, they should have a consistency of approach. There should be a coming together of the various professional boards to drive forward consistent standards. I will give one specific example.

[Alicia Kearns]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Guy Opperman]

My hon. Friend will take my time, but I will give way very briefly.

[Alicia Kearns]

Before it even gets to treatment, a big problem is the way we assess the safety of a pregnancy, which is the same as it was in the 1960s. It has not changed. There is a new AI programme—the Tommy’s app—that could be rolled out across the entire country to ensure that technology is used to assess the vulnerability of pregnancies. Does my hon. Friend agree that that sort of tool is what we need rolled out to ensure consistency of diagnosis and safety in pregnancy, and not just treatment?