Baby Loss and Safe Staffing in Maternity Care
Debate between Guy Opperman and Caroline Johnson(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Dr Johnson
I will not, because I have a lot of questions to get through in a really short time.
Many hon. Members talked about bereavement. In the difficult scenario of baby loss, we understand that bereavement care for women and families is critical. We continue to engage closely with the bereavement sector to assess what is needed to ensure that bereaved families and individuals receive the support that they need. This year we have provided £2.26 million of national funding to support trusts, expand the number of staff trained in bereavement care and directly support trusts to increase the number of days of specialist bereavement provision that families can access.
In the women’s health strategy, which hon. Members mentioned, published earlier this year, we discussed the introduction of pregnancy loss certificates for England. This will allow a non-statutory, voluntary scheme to enable parents who have experienced a pre-24 weeks pregnancy loss to record and receive a certificate to provide recognition of their baby’s potential life. The certificate will not be a legal document, but it will be an important acknowledgement of a life lost, and we hope that it will provide comfort and support by validating a loss.
We understand the impact of pregnancy and childbirth on mental health, especially for those affected by the loss of a baby, and we are committed to expanding and transforming our mental health services so that people can receive the support that they need when they need it.
As part of the NHS long-term plan, we are looking to improve the access to and quality of perinatal mental health care for mothers and their partners. Mental health services around England are being expanded to include new mental health hubs for new, expectant, or bereaved mothers. These will offer physical health checks and psychological therapy in one building.
Guy Opperman
I accept that my hon. Friend has many things to cover today. As a former Minister, may I advise her that she might want to be encouraged to write to everyone with detailed answers from civil servants to the points raised?
Does my hon. Friend agree on one key point—that the collation of data and the consistency of approach must be nationwide? While we have many wonderful trusts, that has to be driven by the NHS, for which she is a Minister.
Dr Johnson
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend.
Going back to the issue of perinatal mental health, we have previously funded Sands, the stillbirth and neonatal death charity, to work with other baby loss charities and the royal colleges to produce and support the roll-out of a national bereavement care pathway to reduce the variation in the quality of bereavement care provided by the NHS and ensure that, wherever a woman and family are being cared for, they get a high standard of care. The pathway covers a range of circumstances of baby loss, including miscarriage. As of April this year, 78% of trusts in England had committed to adopting the nine national bereavement care pathway standards.
The hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) talked about pre-eclampsia. NHS England is establishing maternal medicine clinics. These are specialist networks across the UK, which will manage pre-conception, antenatal, post-natal and medical issues in women, and reduce long-term morbidity, thereby improving outcomes for those women who have co-existing medical conditions.
My hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (David Rutley) spoke about the maternity unit in his constituency. I know that he is a doughty campaigner for that unit. I will write to him with further information on progress in that area.
The hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) talked about the Scottish health service and how it is performing in relation to maternity care. It is, of course, a devolved issue in Scotland, but I was moved to hear about what is happening in areas of the north of Scotland near Elgin. I would encourage the devolved Scottish Administration to consider carefully what is going on there and to see what they can do to improve care. It seems unacceptable for women to travel 102 miles to give birth.
The NHS in England has a medical education reform programme, co-sponsored by NHS England and Health Education England, to direct investment for specialty training for population needs back towards smaller and rural hospitals. That programme entered its implementation phase in August 2022.
Hon. Friends mentioned The Lancet recommendations. While the pregnancy loss review will be published shortly, I am not in a position today to commit to what it is going to say, but we will consider it carefully.