Maternity Nurses, Nannies and the Infant Sleep Industry

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Monday 8th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Secondary Care (Karin Smyth)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Rand) for securing this debate and acknowledging the concern that has been raised recently in the field and by the media. We are all deeply saddened to see the impact of those giving poor advice on infant sleeping. Public safety is and has to remain the top priority.

As my hon. Friend said, being a new parent is a difficult time; I certainly recognise that helping an infant settle into a regular sleep pattern can be difficult for new parents and carers. It is a worrying and stressful time, as he said. Rogue advice from so-called experts can have a devastating effect on those who seek reputable advice and guidance.

Before I talk about regulation of the infant sleep industry, I want to clarify that the Department for Education is responsible for the regulation of nannies and childcare services, which my hon. Friend mentioned. The early years foundation stage statutory framework sets the standards and requirements that early years providers must meet to ensure that children have the best start in life and are kept healthy and safe. All early years providers are already required to meet the safer sleep requirements set out in the statutory framework, which currently links to the NHS safer sleep guidance. The Department for Education plans to update the wording in the early years foundation stage statutory framework so that the requirements are set out directly in the framework itself. That is due to come into effect from September 2026, subject to the usual parliamentary and legislative processes. The Department for Education has already written to providers informing them of the proposed new wording and to remind them that they must meet the current requirements.

The “Best Start in Life” campaign provides parents and carers with NHS safer sleep advice through a range of communication channels, including social media, the website and an email programme. Recently, we have collaborated with experts such as Rosey Davidson, a paediatric sleep consultant, to support the promotion of safer-sleep guidance, reaching approximately 40,000 parents through one post alone. The healthy babies programme supports new parents and families by offering integrated, preventive and universal support, including for perinatal mental health, parent-infant relationships and infant feeding, in the 1,001 days from pregnancy to age two. By delivering those services through a physical and digital Best Start family hubs network, we are ensuring that parents and carers have access to joined-up, family-centred advice and support that is delivered in communities where there are high levels of need.

In January, NHS England published a post-natal toolkit to improve the post-natal care experience for women and their families. The toolkit supports integrated care boards, their place-based partners, and health and care providers to work together with service users and professionals to improve the post-natal care experience and both short-term and long-term maternal and infant health outcomes. Additionally, NHS England has published guidance for GPs on the post-natal appointment that women should be offered six weeks to eight weeks after giving birth. That provides an important opportunity for GPs to listen to women in a discreet, supportive environment.

Qualified health visitors and their teams also have an important role, as my hon. Friend said, in supporting infant health, wellbeing and parenting confidence. They promote safe sleeping for babies and provide safe advice to parents. Services such as health visiting are being strengthened by providing over £13.4 billion of public health funding for local government over the three years from 2026/27 through a consolidated ringfenced public health grant.

“Maternity nurse”, “night nurse”, “baby sleep consultant” or other terms for these roles are not regulated professions. Often, those working in a sleep industry role will refer to themselves as a “nurse” to indicate that they are suitably qualified to advise. That can mislead the public by providing an impression that such individuals are qualified and professionally registered to provide a particular level of care, advice or care intervention that they do not hold, which puts the public and babies at risk.

In May 2025, the Government announced our intention to protect the professional title “nurse” within this Parliament. Protecting the title “nurse” will make it a criminal offence for someone to call themselves a nurse unless they are registered as a nurse with the Nursing and Midwifery Council, or part of one of a number of exempt professions, such as dental nurses and veterinary nurses. These new protections will also apply to longer professional titles that include the word “nurse”, such as “maternity nurse” and “night nurse”. To ensure that we get these changes right, we will shortly be publishing a call for evidence on the protection of the title of “nurse”.

I invite everyone present and those interested in this debate to share their views, which will inform the future legislation underpinning the Nursing and Midwifery Council that will implement this change. We want to hear from those working in healthcare, but also those in other fields such as childcare and care for animals as well as the general public, to understand what exemptions should apply and to ensure that those who may be affected by this change can feed in their concerns. We are also seeking views on protecting other titles such as “nursing” and “health visitor”.

However, ultimately this is about patient and public safety. When someone seeks treatment, support or advice from a “nurse”, there is a legitimate expectation that the individual is suitably qualified and professionally registered. Our proposed changes will make it a criminal offence for someone who does not hold such qualifications and professional registration to claim to be a nurse.

This is an important subject and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising it, and I know there is further interest across the House. I hope people will respond to the call for evidence, and we will of course continue to work with colleagues to make sure this is a safe place for parents.

Question put and agreed to.