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 minimise the number of stillbirths in (a) the West Midlands and (b) England.

In the West Midlands, there has been progress towards full implementation of the Saving Babies Lives Care Bundle version 2 (SBLCBv2) to reduce perinatal mortality. This aims to support the national ambition to halve the rates of stillbirths, neonatal and maternal deaths and intrapartum brain injuries by 2025. This ambition was extended to include reducing the rate of preterm births from 8% to 6% by 2025. Integrated care boards in the Midlands are being supported by the Midlands Perinatal Team to achieve full implementation by March 2023. In addition, a Midlands preterm birth strategy is in development with collaboration from clinical leads to reduce preterm births across the region.

In England, the Government's ambition is to halve the rate of stillbirths at 2010 levels by 2025, with a 20% reduction by 2020. The Office of National Statistics’ data published on 17 February 2022 shows that between 2010 and 2020, the stillbirth rate reduced from 5.1 per 1000 births to 3.8 per 1000 births, or a reduction of 25.2%. In the West Midlands Government Office Region, stillbirth rates reduced by 17.0%. We continue to work with all regions, including the West Midlands, to meet the national ambition.