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 tackle infant mortality rates in (a) Stoke-on-Trent North constituency and (b) Kidsgrove.

The Government is working closely with NHS England to reduce infant mortality, while training thousands more midwives to better support women throughout their pregnancy and beyond.

Infant mortality remains a complex multifactorial public health issue and is a priority for the Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Integrated Care Partnership (ICP), with local partners increasing efforts to address above-average infant mortality.

The Staffordshire and Stroke-on-Trent ICP Strategy includes an action plan, led by the Infant Mortality Steering Group, focusing on high-impact actions to address infant mortality, such as reducing smoking at time of delivery, which has now fallen from 9.81% to 5.06%. This strategy is available at the following link:

https://staffsstoke.icb.nhs.uk/your-nhs-integrated-care-board/our-publications/integrated-care-partnership/acge-13346-ssot-icp-strategy-design-v4-23-04-13-single-page/?layout=default

The ICP is implementing the Saving Babies Lives Care Bundle, an initiative to reduce stillbirths, neonatal brain injury, neonatal deaths, and preterm birth. They are also introducing a new maternity equity and equality action plan that includes an equity and equality midwife to address inequalities during pregnancy, which contribute to infant mortality risk and poor maternal outcomes. A new working group has also introduced neonatal cardiopulmonary resuscitation information for parents at postnatal discharge.