Baby Loss Awareness Week

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage]

I thank the hon. Gentleman so much for that intervention. He is absolutely right. In this place, we have a unique opportunity to raise subjects that people find it difficult to talk about out there. In doing so, we shine a light on those subjects, and we are able to really begin to move the dial and to change practice.

With that in mind, I would like to pay tribute to the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) and my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince), who is desperate to speak, although, being a Minister, he is prevented from doing so, so we will have to restrain him. However, in a late-night Adjournment debate back in 2015, they began to raise awareness of the variation in care for families bereaved by baby loss. It was an incredibly moving debate—I remember listening to it at the time—and it really made such a magnificent difference. It was followed by the Baby Loss Awareness Week 2016 debate, which was about bringing the subject to light and challenging the idea that baby loss is an uncomfortable topic that we do not like to talk about. I am grateful to the Members from across this House who shared their personal experiences on that day back in 2016 and have done since.

International Baby Loss Awareness Week begins tomorrow and finishes next Tuesday. This year, the focus is on the need for specialist psychological support for bereaved parents who need it. The Baby Loss Awareness Alliance group of charities will be publishing a report highlighting that some parents need that kind of support as part of their bereavement care.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

I wholeheartedly support the thrust of this debate and what the Minister is saying. I am not going to make a speech today—I did that last year—but when a child is lost, which as Members know has affected my family, counselling and gynaecological advice are hugely important. However, my constituents are over 100 miles from the nearest hospital where someone can give birth. I just want to put it on the record that a 200-mile round trip from Caithness to Inverness makes getting the counselling and gynaecological advice so difficult. My constituents are losing out on that front, and I wish that Caithness general hospital in Wick could be used for such purposes.

[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.

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[Caroline Dinenage]

My hon. Friend is right to raise that matter. When a tragedy could have been avoided by something as simple as sharing patient records, there is no option but to embrace the technology we need to make that a reality. Both the previous and the current Secretary of State for Health and Social Care are in favour of that.

Every trust is now using the perinatal mortality review tool to review stillbirths and neonatal deaths to make sure lessons are learned so that other families do not have to suffer in the same way. The first annual PMRT report is due for publication later this week, and it will provide an analysis of the first 1,500 cases. Overall, a review has been completed on 96% of stillbirths and 86% of neonatal deaths since the tool was launched.

[Jamie Stone]

The Minister talks about safety advice and safety good practice, so may I ask her and the UK Government to share that advice with NHS Highland and indeed the Scottish Government, who have never in my two years or so here given me a straight answer on the safety of pregnant women? Some of those women, who might be in labour, are being transported more than 100 miles from Caithness to Raigmore Hospital in Inverness, in the middle of winter, when the A9 can be blocked. I think lives are in danger.

[Caroline Dinenage]

The hon. Gentleman has put his thoughts clearly on the record, and if there is anything we can ever do to share best practice with colleagues across the devolved nations and around the rest of the world, we are always happy to do that.

The Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch is another remarkable innovation. It commenced investigations in April 2018 and has been operational in the 130 trusts providing maternity services since the end of March 2019. By the end of August, the HSIB had completed 88 investigations, with 169 draft reports looking into maternity and neonatal deaths currently with trusts and families.

NHS Resolution recently published a report on the first year of its early notification scheme for potential birth brain injuries. The scheme requires all births at NHS trusts in England from 1 April 2017 meeting qualifying criteria to be reported to NHS Resolution within 30 days for investigation, so families with a baby affected by a severe brain injury attributable to substandard care can receive significantly earlier answers to their questions. This approach means that they do not have to resort to full court proceedings and can receive financial support with their care and other needs at a much earlier stage. In the first year, 746 incidents were eligible for the scheme. There have been early admissions of liability for 24 families, who have been provided with detailed explanations, admissions of liability and, very importantly, an apology. Families have been provided with financial support for early access to additional care, respite and, where needed, psychological support and counselling.

I am happy to report that this summer the Office for National Statistics reported that the stillbirth rate in England had decreased from 5.1 stillbirths per 1,000 births in 2010 to four stillbirths per 1,000 births in 2018. That represents a 21% reduction in stillbirths two years ahead of our ambitious plan.