Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 15 December 2014 to Question 217331, what steps his Department is taking to support NICE and other stakeholders disseminate and implement NICE guidance for multiple pregnancies within the NHS; and if he will make a statement.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), who are an independent body, publishes a range of support tools and advice to help the National Health Service locally to implement its guidance. Further information can be found at:

https://www.nice.org.uk/about/what-we-do/into-practice/help-implement-nice-guidance

The implementation or communication of clinical guidance for women with multiple pregnancies is a matter for NICE and local trusts.

A range of research relating to causes, risk factors and prevention of stillbirth and neonatal death is funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and the Department’s Policy Research Programme (PRP).

The NIHR Health Technology Assessment programme is currently funding a £6 million trial of an intelligent system to support decision making in the management of labour using the cardiotocogram. The study started in 2009 and is led by University College London. It will test whether an intelligent computer program can help midwives and doctors improve the care they give in response to abnormalities of the baby's heart rate and whether this will lead to fewer babies being harmed because of a lack of oxygen.

The NIHR is funding a £1.1 million clinician scientist award looking at preventing adverse pregnancy outcome in women at increased risk of stillbirth by detecting placental dysfunction.

The NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre and the NIHR Imperial Biomedical Research Centre both have ongoing programmes of research on women's health, including research relevant to the prevention of stillbirth and neonatal death.

The PRP is funding the Policy Research Unit in Maternal Health and Care based in the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit, University of Oxford.