Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of human milk bank provision across the UK.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has produced a guideline on the safe operation of milk banks. This was published in 2010, reviewed in 2014 and is next due for review in 2019. The guideline covers how donor milk banks should recruit, screen and support women who donate breast milk. It also covers how milk banks should handle and process the breast milk they receive from donors. This is available at:

https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/CG93

There are no plans to change the way milk banks are funded, which is through a mix of National Health Service funding and public donations.

There is already a network of 16 milk banks across the United Kingdom (14 are in England, with one each in Northern Ireland and one in Scotland). Further information is available on the website of the UK Association for Milk Banking at:

http://www.ukamb.org/milk-banks/

No assessment has been made of the adequacy of human milk bank provision across the UK. Local initiatives are underway to maximise provision – for example, milk banks in Glasgow and Oxford are piloting the use of a novel traffic light system so that the babies at most need are prioritised when milk stocks run low. Also, the NICE guideline includes recommendations that have led to improvements in how milk banks operate. Revised criteria for the microbiological acceptance of donor breast milk have led to higher volumes being available due to lower discard rates.