Jeremy Hunt

This government has a driving mission to break down barriers to opportunity, which starts by ensuring every child has the best start in life. It is our ambition for all families to have access to high quality, affordable and flexible early education and care, improving life chances for children and work choices for parents.

The government is committed to delivering a modern childcare system from the end of parental leave to the end of primary school, providing every child with a firm foundation which sets them up for life and ensures parents are able to work the jobs and hours they choose, breaking down the barriers to opportunity for every family.

From September 2024, eligible working parents of children aged nine months and above have been able to access 15 hours of government funded childcare per week (over 38 weeks a year), and from September 2025 working parents will be able to access 30 hours per week (over 38 weeks a year) for children from aged nine months to when they start school.

As announced at the Autumn Budget 2024, we expect to provide over £8 billion for the early years entitlements in 2025/26, which is around a 30% increase compared to 2024/25, as we continue to deliver the expansion to eligible working parents of children aged from nine months.

The new government is improving access to high quality childcare and early education and will be allocating funding for the first phase of new or expanded school-based nurseries, with 300 ready for September 2025.

To support working families with primary-school-aged children, the National Wraparound Childcare programme is improving the availability of before and after school childcare to ensure that parents have the flexibility they need to care for their children, delivering 200,000 additional childcare places. The government is going further to deliver universal free breakfast clubs in every primary school starting with 750 early adopter schools from April 2025, to ensure children are set-up for the day and ready to learn, whilst supporting parents to have greater work choices.

In addition to the entitlements, parents may also be eligible for childcare support through Tax-Free Childcare or Universal Credit Childcare. Parents can check what childcare support they are entitled to via the Childcare Choices website, which can be accessed here: https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk.

This information is not collected centrally. All National Health Service trusts, apart from NHS ambulance trusts, are required to meet the reporting requirements in The National Health Service (Quality Accounts) (Amendment) Regulations 2017 relating to national learning from deaths policy. These reporting requirements are set out in the National Guidance on Learning from Deaths, published in March 2017. The guidance is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/nqb-national-guidance-learning-from-deaths.pdf

The reporting requirements on learning from deaths for NHS ambulance trusts are set out in National Guidance for Ambulance Trusts on Learning from Deaths, published in July 2019, and are available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/learning-from-deaths-guidance-for-ambulance-trusts.pdf

Under the NHS Standard Contract, trusts are required to comply with national guidance on learning from deaths where applicable.

The National Maternity Safety Ambition was launched in 2015 and will end in 2025. As part of our consultation on the 10-year health plan, we will first consider the best ways to improve maternity safety so that the NHS has the tools it needs to deliver improved safety outcomes for women and their babies and to meet any associated targets.

The Government is committed to ensuring that all women and babies received safe, personalised, equitable, and compassionate care. We are determined to learn lessons from inquiries and investigations.

The Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch became an independent investigations body known as the Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB) in April 2023, through the Health and Care Act 2022. Its role is to investigate incidents occurring during the provision of health care services that have, or may have, implications for patient safety. The HSSIB will conduct investigations using a no-blame approach, that is supported by a safe space which encourages participants, including patients, families, and staff, to share information in confidence. This aims to encourage the spread of a culture of learning within the National Health Service and independent sector.

As set out in the Health and Care Act 2022, the HSSIB will also provide advice, guidance, and training to NHS bodies upon request. The HSSIB has established their own processes and principles around matters such as evidence handling and access to documentation.

NHS England has created a National Independent Patient Safety Investigation Framework, which is an internally focussed approach to support the commissioning and management of independent investigations.

The trust has committed to a thematic review of all neonatal and maternal deaths since 2019. This has started for neonatal deaths but not for maternal deaths, due to delays identifying an external assessor.

The trust is engaging with the NHS England South West Region to resolve this issue as soon as possible, and remains committed to publishing and sharing the findings from both reviews openly.