Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Rosie Wrighting and Yvette Cooper(1 week, 4 days ago)
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Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Yvette Cooper)
The Government are determined to give every child the best start in life. We will appoint an independent maternity and neonatal commissioner and publish an action plan covering every area identified for improvement from pregnancy to post-natal care. We will also go further, rolling out Sure Start health services for parents and babies into every family centre across the country, reaching up to 1,000 family hubs over the next two years.
Rosie Wrighting
The maternity ward at Kettering general hospital faces significant challenges such as reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete, overheating during the summer and flooding during the winter. We urgently need to see the maternity ward rebuilt and the money raised by families for a bereavement suite put towards a safe space for families in the most difficult of times. I thank the Secretary of State for all the work she has done on national maternity services. Will she meet me to discuss those specific challenges and ensure that my constituents get the maternity service they deserve?
Yvette Cooper
I will happily meet my hon. Friend to talk about maternity services. I pay tribute to her as well, because she has been a tireless campaigner for improving maternity services and, in particular, bereavement suites for families at the most sensitive times. I also pay tribute to all the families in her constituency who have been involved in those campaigns. Work is under way for a new maternity and neonatal facility in Kettering general, which will include a bereavement suite. We want to work with the hospital and the community on that.
Summer Health and Resilience
Debate between Rosie Wrighting and Yvette Cooper(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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Yvette Cooper
The better care fund is hugely important—I think it has £9 billion that is being jointly allocated. It is for the NHS and local authorities to work together on ensuring that we help to prevent people from entering hospital when they do not need to and that we have the proper services and co-ordination in place. We are also looking at the neighbourhood health programme, as that is another area in which we should look place by place at better co-ordination and ways of working. Those things are really important and will continue. As part of the response to Louise Casey’s review, we also want to look at how we can better bring together all these different approaches, because there is the same fundamental, core issue: whatever we have tried at different times, we are still not effectively co-ordinating health and social care, and we have to do that.
Rosie Wrighting (Kettering) (Lab)
I welcome the Secretary of State to her place. I also thank all staff across the NHS, particularly those at Kettering general hospital, who worked throughout the summer in very tough conditions. Under this Government, we have seen investment in Kettering general hospital, with new solar panels and construction starting on a new energy centre, but we still await construction on the main building, particularly the maternity ward. One local midwife told me:
“The building is deteriorating badly, we are worried about the safety of everyone who relies on this service. As midwives we come to work every day to provide safe, compassionate care but it is becoming difficult to do so in a building falling into disrepair.”
Will the Secretary of State meet me and my constituent to discuss the building’s urgent challenges?
Yvette Cooper
I am very happy to talk to my hon. Friend further about this issue, as I know other Health Ministers will be. She is rightly standing up for the patients—particularly new mums—and staff in her constituency who are affected by the facilities. It is hugely welcome that we managed to include Kettering hospital in wave 2 of the new hospital programme, given the new facilities it needs. Obviously, there is a lot of work to be done, and there will need to be discussions about prioritisation locally—about what can be done and when. I also welcome my hon. Friend prioritising maternity issues, which are an important personal priority for me; I think we have not taken them seriously enough, across the health service, for too long.