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 reduce the variation in quality of maternity and bereavement services throughout the NHS.

The Maternity and Neonatal Safety Improvement Programme covers all maternity and neonatal services across England. The programme has been working with trusts to support frontline staff to create the conditions for continuous improvement, a safety culture and a national maternal and neonatal learning system to reduce unwarranted variation in outcomes and care experiences, and provide a high quality healthcare experience for all women, babies and families across maternity and neonatal care settings in England.

The Government also funded Sands, the Stillbirth and Neonatal Death charity to work with other baby loss charities and Royal Colleges to produce and support the roll-out of a National Bereavement Care Pathway to reduce the variation in the quality of bereavement care provided by the National Health Service.