Asked by: Will Quince (Conservative - Colchester)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether officials in her Department have had discussions with NHS England on the potential merits of (a) renewing the national maternity safety ambition beyond 2025 and (b) extending that ambition to include reducing inequalities.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
The Department has regular and ongoing discussions with NHS England on how to improve maternity and neonatal outcomes for mothers and babies, as well as how to tackle disparities in access, experience, and outcomes, including and beyond 2025.
Asked by: Will Quince (Conservative - Colchester)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that a commitment to reducing inequalities in (a) pregnancy loss and (b) baby deaths is included in the next Three year delivery plan for maternity and neonatal services.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
The Government is committed to tackling and reducing disparities in health outcomes, and works closely with NHS England to improve equity for mothers and babies, and race equality for staff. A central ambition of the National Health Services’ three-year delivery plan for maternity and neonatal services is to reduce inequalities in access, experience, and outcomes for women and babies. This plan is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/three-year-delivery-plan-for-maternity-and-neonatal-services/
There are no current plans to revise the three-year plan, and NHS England are focused on delivering the existing commitments, including those relating to inequalities in still birth and neonatal death.
Asked by: Will Quince (Conservative - Colchester)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what plans the Government has to ensure that every hospital has a bereavement suite.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
Since 2010, we have invested £35 million in the National Health Service to improve birthing environments and this included better bereavement rooms and quiet area spaces at nearly 40 hospitals to support bereaved families.
We are also funding Sands, the Stillbirth and Neonatal Death charity to work with other baby loss charities, Royal Colleges and the All Party Parliamentary Group on Baby Loss to produce a National Bereavement Care Pathway to reduce the variation in the quality of bereavement care provided by the NHS. The pathway will cover all forms of baby loss to ensure that all bereaved parents are offered equal, high quality, individualised, safe and sensitive care.
Asked by: Will Quince (Conservative - Colchester)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps the Government plans to take to ensure that smoking rates among pregnant women fall.
Answered by Steve Brine
The Government is developing a new tobacco control plan, which will be published shortly. The plan will contain actions to reduce the prevalence of smoking during pregnancy.
Asked by: Will Quince (Conservative - Colchester)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent assessment he has made of the (a) number and (b) availability of dedicated maternity bereavement rooms and facilities across the NHS.
Answered by Philip Dunne
Decisions about the provision of bereavement services are best taken locally. It is for local National Health Service organisations to ensure that appropriate facilities and services are in place to support bereaved parents following the death of a baby.
The Department has published Health Building Note 09-02: Maternity Care Facilities a guideline on the design and planning of maternity care facilities in new healthcare buildings and on the adaptation/extension of existing facilities. In line with the guidance, we would expect new build or redesigned maternity units to have facilities available for women and families who suffer bereavement at any stage of pregnancy.
Since 2010, we have invested £35 million in the NHS to improve birthing environments and this included better bereavement rooms and quiet area spaces at nearly 40 hospitals to support bereaved families.
In 2016, the Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Charity, Sands, published Audit of bereavement care provision in United Kingdom maternity. The audit found that of the 62 trusts and health boards that responded:
- 63% has a bereavement room in each maternity unit in the trust or health board;
- 26% has a bereavement room in at least one maternity unit but not all in the trust or health board; and
- 11% had no dedicated bereavement room in the trust or health board.
Asked by: Will Quince (Conservative - Colchester)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the level of bereavement support midwife availability in maternity units across the NHS.
Answered by Philip Dunne
All bereaved parents should be offered the same high standard of care and support in an appropriate environment.
In 2016, the Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Charity, Sands, published Audit of bereavement care provision in UK maternity. The audit found that of the 66 trusts and health boards which responded, 62% of the maternity units they cover have at least one bereavement support midwife that is based there.
NHS England has commissioned Sands to undertake a project on the role of the bereavement midwife. The project will make recommendations for the remit of the role of the bereavement midwife and also give some guidance on the support structures required around the role. Sands are due to report their finds to NHS England later this year.
Asked by: Will Quince (Conservative - Colchester)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the level of cold cot availability in maternity units across the NHS.
Answered by Philip Dunne
All bereaved parents should be offered the same high standard of care and support in an appropriate environment.
In 2016, the Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Charity, Sands, published Audit of bereavement care provision in UK maternity. The audit found that of the 69 trusts and health boards responding to the survey 91% reported that each of the maternity units they covered have access to at least one cold or cuddle cot.
Asked by: Will Quince (Conservative - Colchester)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that every hospital that has a maternity unit has a bereavement suite.
Answered by Philip Dunne
All bereaved parents should be offered the same high standard of care and support in an appropriate environment.
I am pleased that, thanks in part to this Government’s investment of £35million, nine out of ten maternity units have dedicated bereavement rooms.
Next month I am hosting a roundtable with charities and colleagues to discuss these important issues in greater detail.
Asked by: Will Quince (Conservative - Colchester)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, when his Department will publish the new Tobacco Control Plan.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
The Government is developing a new tobacco control plan, which will be published shortly.
Asked by: Will Quince (Conservative - Colchester)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the merits of offering unused returned drugs to developing countries.
Answered by David Mowat
In general, where a hospital pharmacy issues medicines to an individual patient and they remain within the hospital, either because they are not used or only partly used, the medicines would be returned to the pharmacy to check that they are suitable for re-use and returned to the pharmacy stock.
The Government does not promote the re-use of medicines that have left the pharmacy and been returned to either hospital or community pharmacies by patients, as it is not possible to guarantee the quality of a returned medicine by physical inspection alone.
The Government also does not recommend the donation of patient-returned medicines. This is in line with clear World Health Organization guidelines, which have been developed in cooperation with major international agencies involved in humanitarian and developmental aid. The guidelines are available at:
www.who.int/medicines/publications/med_donationsguide2011/en/