Baby Loss Awareness Week

Debate between Caroline Dinenage and Andrew Percy

Tuesday 8th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that. The situation is particularly difficult in rural communities where people live a very long way from services. As we set out in the NHS long-term plan, maternity outreach clinics are going to start to integrate maternity, reproductive health and psychological therapy for women experiencing mental health difficulties arising from or related to maternity experience, and we must keep in mind those living in very remote communities when we talk about those outreach facilities.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

This is such an important topic. While the Minister is on the subject of outreach clinics, may I also emphasise to her the need for maternity bereavement suites within maternity suites? I am proud to have helped secure £22,500 for the new facility at Scunthorpe hospital that opened over the summer, and I pay tribute to the Health Tree Foundation for securing that £175,000 project. It took years but we now have a bereavement suite where parents who have had a stillbirth can spend time with their other children and with their baby on the ward in that maternity suite, just as other young mums and dads do. It is a really important part of the healing process. Frankly, that should be the norm throughout all our maternity suites. As we mark Baby Loss Awareness Week, perhaps the Government could consider such a system for the country as a whole.

[Caroline Dinenage]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point. He is absolutely right that we need to give that area a lot more attention. Having that ability to spend time together will be an incredibly valuable and important part of the process of grieving and coming to terms with the unbelievably tragic death of a baby.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Caroline Dinenage and Andrew Percy

Tuesday 24th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that question, and I will certainly look more closely at the issue.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

13. What assessment he has made of the extent to which the draft Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 (Remedial) Order 2018 meets his Department’s policy objectives on equality.