Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to improve maternity services in the West Yorkshire region.

We are committed to improving maternity and neonatal services across the country, to ensure that all women and babies receive the care they deserve. The West Yorkshire and Harrogate Local Maternity and Neonatal System (LMNS), as part of the West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board, focuses on transforming maternity services through NHS England’s three-year delivery plan, ensuring that care is personalised, and women are listened to. Further information is available at the following link:

https://www.wypartnership.co.uk/our-priorities/maternity

The West Yorkshire and Harrogate LMNS has multiple working groups, which focus on the four key themes of the three-year delivery plan. This work includes implementing the Saving Babies Lives Care Bundle version 3, which is a package of initiatives designed to reduce stillbirths, neonatal brain injury, neonatal death, and preterm birth, and meeting the requirements of the Maternity Incentive Scheme which provides financial incentives for trusts to meet certain safety requirements.

The LMNS has oversight and assurance through various metrics including clinical outcome data, workforce data, patient and staff surveys, a health inequalities dashboard, and a perinatal quality surveillance model.