Giving Every Baby the Best Start in Life

Debate between Sarah Olney and Jonathan Edwards

Tuesday 9th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Olney]

I congratulate the hon. Member on the birth of his baby, and I hope that all is progressing well. I am grateful to him for raising that point about fathers, and I will come to it later in my speech.

My interest in this topic arose from conversations I have had with constituents who gave birth during lockdown. They told me about the isolating experience of not being able to have their partners in the delivery room with them, not being able to share their new babies with the wider family and not being able to meet up with other new parents to support each other and share their experiences. Thinking back to my own experiences of early motherhood—12 years ago—I remember how much it meant to me to have all those people around me as I recovered from the birth and got used to my new life as a parent. My heart goes out to all those who struggled in isolation during those early months, and I am determined that young families should be prioritised for support as we emerge out of the other side of the pandemic.

The UK Government’s recent focus on investment in the first 1,001 days in their “Best Start for Life” vision and funding is very welcome and will undoubtedly make a significant difference to families. I pay tribute in particular to the efforts of the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom), who has been unsparing in her work to bring the needs of our very youngest citizens to the forefront of public policy and funding.

One of the most important sources of support for new parents is a health visitor. Even for those who enjoyed the most robust mental health, having sudden responsibility for a tiny and vulnerable new baby who is entirely dependent on them is a source of great anxiety. Having a visit from a trained health care professional who can give them advice, answer their questions and, above all, reassure them is enormously helpful and can make all the difference to their early experience of parenthood.

Although the UK is no longer in lockdown, both access to services and working patterns have changed. Some support services, such as playgroups, have not survived, and some have closed altogether. Children’s centres have reopened, but numbers are limited and places need to be booked in advance, which may mean that the families with the least time on their hands will lose out. The co-ordinators and volunteers at Home-Start Richmond, Kingston & Hounslow have told me about the high levels of anxiety experienced by new mothers unable to access health visitor advice and reassurance. That is impacting new mothers’ confidence and their ability to meet their baby’s needs.

Health visitors are a skilled workforce of specialist public health nurses who have the expertise to provide holistic care to families. As the only professionals positioned to reach every young child before they start school, health visitors play a crucial role in child safety and early childhood development. They identify and manage developmental delay, as well as common and serious health problems. They also provide support around childhood immunisations and advice on infant feeding, safe sleeping and mental health, all of which relieves pressure on NHS emergency departments and specialist services.

However, there is currently no national plan to address falling health visiting workforce numbers. The Government's spending review stated that it

“maintains the Public Health Grant in real terms, enabling Local Authorities across the country to continue delivering frontline services like child health visits.”

In fact, the Government are maintaining the public health grant at a level that is too low for many local authorities to resource health visiting services that can deliver face-to-face visits and the support described in the healthy child programme and other national guidance.

Ahead of the spending review, 700 leading children’s sector organisations were united in their call for investment for 3,000 more health visitors over the next three years. However, I am concerned that £500 million over the next three years will not deliver the Government’s pledge to rebuild health visiting. It is of the most urgent importance that we restore face-to-face health visiting to every new mother as the most essential building block of support to families as they welcome their new babies.

The importance of early home visits by skilled healthcare professionals was highlighted to me by one constituent who wrote to me last summer. She said:

“My baby is now 6 months old and soon after birth he was diagnosed with SMA type 1. If you are not familiar with it, the full name is Spinal Muscular Atrophy and it’s a muscular wasting illness. There isn’t a cure for it and without treatments and proper care the life expectancy of a baby is less than 2 years. He is currently under treatment but, and here is the reason for this letter, every possible centre specialised in physiotherapy, hydrotherapy or other physical activities for disabled people is shut due to Covid-19.

My husband and I were the ones who had to notice something was not right with Peter because, due to Covid, no one came for home visits after birth to see the baby or me. I almost died in child birth and because we were left alone I had to endure 1 month bed ridden due to further complications, once again noticed by me. Only once I was able to walk again we saw something wasn’t right with the baby. If after 2 weeks the health visitor had been able to come home, my son would have started treatment sooner without losing the mobility of his legs.”

I want to talk a little more about the importance of diagnosing and treating perinatal mental health. Maternal suicide is the leading cause of direct deaths within a year of pregnancy. An estimated one in four women experience mental health problems in the first 1,001 days after pregnancy. While depression and anxiety are the most common perinatal mental health problems, other conditions include eating disorders, psychosis, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. One in 10 fathers is also affected by perinatal mental health problems. Of the 241 families that Home-Start Richmond, Kingston & Hounslow supported during the most recent year, 66% were experiencing mental health difficulties, including post-natal depression, anxiety, depression and chronic mental health conditions.

I was privileged to be able to visit Springfield University Hospital in Tooting recently to meet the perinatal psychiatry team for the South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust. I was extremely pleased to hear about the work the trust is doing in successfully supporting new mothers who struggle with their mental health, and particularly that it was able to maintain its services during the lockdown and after. Akvinder Bola-Emerson, the clinical services lead for perinatal psychiatry, stressed in particular the need for peer support but also the importance of health visitors, whom she described as the “eyes and ears” of perinatal mental health services.

The visit highlighted for me that we also need better provision for new and expectant fathers. Currently only mothers can be formally diagnosed with a perinatal mental health problem. Springfield provides services for fathers, but it is currently able to identify mental health issues in fathers only when they accompany a mother who is attending the hospital for perinatal mental health issues.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Lady for securing the debate, and she is making some very important points. Does she agree that one of the worst situations expectant parents can find themselves in is when there is a miscarriage and that parental leave for such parents would be a welcome reform?

[Sarah Olney]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for his intervention. He is absolutely right that there are a large number of events and incidents surrounding pregnancy and birth—as I know from my own experience—that can cause huge distress, and it is right that mothers and the people supporting them, and fathers as well, get the support they need, including statutory leave from employment for the time it takes to come to terms with the miscarriage. That is certainly something we should be looking at.

We know that impending fatherhood can be a cause of great anxiety for men, and more services need to be developed to support them. We also know that over a third of domestic violence starts or gets worse when a woman is pregnant. I would speculate that some of that is attributable to undiagnosed and untreated mental health conditions in expectant fathers, which underlines the need to do more to support them.

In addition to health visiting and perinatal psychiatry, support for children and their families throughout their early years is vital for enhancing children’s prospects at school and beyond. Evidence shows that effective integration of services in the earliest years can bring broad benefits. For example, Sure Start children’s centres are shown to decisively reduce hospitalisations during childhood. However, 1,300 children’s centres have closed since 2010, and recent research has shown that 82% of parents of young children have struggled to access early years services. I am pleased that the Government have now committed £80 million to introducing family hubs to 75 local authorities across England, and £50 million for parenting programmes. However, we need more information on what family hubs can provide, and I would particularly like to ensure that health visiting and mental health support are included.

The importance of the right support in the early years was brought home to me after a recent meeting with primary headteachers in my constituency. I heard about how difficult it is for nursery and reception-age children to settle into class and to get used to spending time with other children and not spending all day at home with their parents. For adults, lockdown has been 18 months of inconvenience, after which we expect to be able to pick up the threads of our former life. However, some young children who started nursery this term will have spent up to a third of their life in lockdown, and we cannot yet know what the long-term impact will be.

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Debate between Sarah Olney and Jonathan Edwards

Tuesday 22nd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Rosie. I rise to speak on behalf of the Liberal Democrats on parts 1, 2 and 3 of the Bill.

In part 1, which deals with the principles of non-discrimination and mutual recognition of goods, the Secretary of State proposes to award himself the power to vary the statutory requirements included in the mutual recognition principle by statutory instrument. The Bill states that he has only to consult with the relevant Ministers in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, rather than to receive their consent. I put it to the Government that that undermines the ability of the devolved legislatures to set standards for the goods being sold to the citizens in their nations.

[Jonathan Edwards]

I am sorry for interrupting the hon. Lady so early in her speech, but she hits on a key point. There is a world of difference between consulting and consenting. Any respect agenda must be based on the latter as opposed to the former.

[Sarah Olney]

I entirely agree. I was going on to say that the Secretary of State also awards himself the power to vary the statutory requirements in the non-discrimination clause, such as on transportation and inspection of goods or regulation of the markets, in the same way. Is it not the case that, should the Secretary of State find that such requirements no longer suited the needs of English producers, he could change them, to the detriment of Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish producers, without the express consent of their Governments?