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 (a) Slough constituency and (b) Berkshire.

The Department is supporting the National Health Service to deliver the three-year delivery plan for maternity and neonatal services across England, to make care safer, personalised, and more equitable for women and babies. Improvement in the Slough and East Berkshire maternity services includes aligning with the three-year delivery plan, and involves:

• the recruitment of more midwives to significantly reduce vacancies and to have minimal shortages by 2025;
• increased access to services through a new maternity hub in Crowthorne;
• listening to women's voices through the maternity and neonatal voices partnership, with additional funding for targeted engagement with parents with a baby admitted to a neonatal unit;
• implementing an updated Saving Babies Lives Care Bundle, which is a package of interventions to reduce stillbirths, neonatal brain injury, neonatal deaths, and preterm birth; and
• piloting a perinatal pelvic health service that provides women with information about pelvic health risks, signs of pelvic floor dysfunction, and prevention strategies.

The Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust has focused on addressing inequalities by improving access to perinatal mental health services, interpreter availability, and antenatal and preconception information, with an increase in folic acid uptake in Slough.