Pharmacy First

Debate between Cherilyn Mackrory and Andrea Leadsom

Wednesday 31st January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dame Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Lady will be aware that, although a few are owned by GP practices, community pharmacies are usually private businesses. We are training the registered community pharmacists that we need. Obviously, it would be for that local area to put in place its own recruitment policies, but I would be happy to meet her to discuss that further.

[Cherilyn Mackrory (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement, and I put on the record my thanks to all the pharmacists who work in my constituency. The geography of my constituency can often mean that someone’s nearest pharmacy is about a mile and a half away across the water, so they end up driving 11 miles around to get to it. I believe that the mapping needs to change. Will she meet me to discuss it?

[Dame Andrea Leadsom]

I am always happy to meet my hon. Friend. Just to let her know, 100 pharmacies in Cornwall are signed up to Pharmacy First.

Baby Loss Awareness Week

Debate between Cherilyn Mackrory and Andrea Leadsom

Thursday 23rd September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Cherilyn Mackrory]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for your words and my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) for intervening.

Today, I wish to extend my sincere condolences to anyone who has experienced the loss of a baby. To anyone to whom this has happened, despite what they may see, I say that the sun will shine again. It does not feel like it now, but one day it just does. For me, the dark clouds of shock, anger, guilt and dreadful, dreadful sadness do eventually dissipate—

[Dame Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

I pay huge tribute to my hon. Friend for her courage in coming to this place to share her views. I know that she is speaking for so many people who have such a tough time, whether through miscarriage or stillbirth. This was her terrible experience of a child who was not going to make it, but all of us here have her back. We all agree with her, and there are so many people here who would like nothing more than to see much more done in that critical period of maternity. All our thanks go to her for her bravery today.

[Cherilyn Mackrory]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her intervention and kind words.

I entered Parliament and suddenly had the opportunity to speak with many people who had experienced the loss of a baby. Unlike me, many have no idea why their baby had died. As well as prevention of baby loss, which I will come to later, my focus in this place is on the care for bereaved families. The all-party group was instrumental in the creation of the Government-backed national bereavement care pathway, which seeks to improve the quality and consistency of bereavement care received by parents in NHS trusts in England after pregnancy or baby loss.

There are different experiences from place to place. While the Department of Health and Social Care strongly urges the trusts to take part in the pathway, mandating it and its nine standards would lead to greater time, funding and resources being made available to healthcare professionals to deliver this. Poor bereavement care, from the moment of diagnosis and the breaking of bad news, exacerbates the profound pain felt by parents. Although approaches to bereavement care in the UK have greatly improved in recent years, inconsistency still remains, often resulting in a postcode lottery for parents.

As of last month, all NHS trusts in England have either expressed interest in, or formally committed to, implementing the pathway within their hospitals and their services. Trusts require additional funding, however, to fully implement the standards, especially to ensure that every hospital has an appropriate bereavement suite, specialist staff and training.

As I mentioned earlier, the care that we received in Cornwall on the weekend that we lost Lily was second to none. However, while I was able to access bereavement counselling through my work, my husband has never been offered anything. It is my opinion that supporting partners and the wider family are not being looked after in the way that we would hope. Because the mother births the child, dads and supporting partners often feel the need to be “strong”—to be there for them. People often ask how mum is, but may not ask how dad is. That is not healthy. What about the wider family? Grandparents are grieving for their lost grandchild and wondering how best to support. Siblings are wondering what has happened.

My daughter was only four when we lost Lily. She knew I was pregnant and we tried to explain what had happened in an age-appropriate way. She seemed to accept this as children do and did not mention it again—until a couple of weeks ago. Completely out of the blue and without warning, she said, “Mummy, when I was four, you were going to have a baby but then didn’t.” Crikey! Wham! What do you do? On the hoof, I needed to explain calmly to my now almost seven-year-old what had happened. I do not know whether I explained it in the right way, but she knows now that, if there are questions, we are always here. I do not want it to be a spectre on her childhood to wonder what happened to her mystery sister. It reminded me that a child’s mind can often make up what they do not know, and we need to make sure that siblings and the wider bereaved family are cared for long after the event.