Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Victoria Prentis and Caroline Dinenage

Tuesday 24th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

3. What steps he is taking to improve safety in maternity care.

[The Minister for Care (Caroline Dinenage)]

Our national ambition is to halve the rates of stillbirths, neonatal and maternal deaths, and serious birth-related brain injuries by 2015. We are working with our partners to implement the maternity safety strategy, and new data shows that the stillbirth rate in 2017 was the lowest since records began in 1927.

[Victoria Prentis]

Our three children were all born in periods of extremely hot weather. I ask the House to think of the families of Banbury who have to travel for up to an hour and a half or even two hours, if they are lucky enough to have their own car, to Oxford to give birth in a full obstetric unit. May I encourage the Minister, in her drive to ensure that maternity care is safe, kind and close to home, to ask the new Secretary of State to visit us in Banbury soon so that he can assess the situation for himself?

[Caroline Dinenage]

I completely understand my hon. Friend’s concerns. She has been an incredibly strong advocate and campaigner on this very issue. As she knows, no permanent changes will be made until the work is carried out by the independent review panel, which is looking at attempts to recruit obstetric staff for her local services. I thank her very much for the offer of a visit; I am sure the Secretary of State will look at it very closely.

Learning Disabilities Mortality Review

Debate between Victoria Prentis and Caroline Dinenage

Tuesday 8th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage]

I thank the hon. Lady for raising that case. It was a truly horrible case. The Mental Capacity Act 2005 is all about making sure that we have care that is centred around the individual, and that parents’, families’ and carers’ thoughts are taken into consideration when making decisions about how we care for people.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

We can be confident that the right legal framework is now in place, with the Equality Act 2010 and the Health and Social Care Act 2012, but what further steps can the Minister take to ensure that those who work in NHS organisations are aware of them?

[Caroline Dinenage]

Of course it is the responsibility of individual employers to ensure that their staff are appropriately trained and competent to fulfil the responsibilities that we ask of them, but we have commissioned Health Education England, Skills for Health and Skills for Care to develop a learning disabilities core skills education and training framework, which sets out a tiered approach to that kind of training and how it needs to be improved.