Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to reduce the number of cases of sudden infant death syndrome.

Public Health England (PHE) works to reduce the incidence of sudden infant death syndrome.

PHE does this through the provision of professional leadership and guidance to the health visiting profession such as PHE’s Early Years High Impact Area five - Managing minor illnesses and reducing accidents, to improve outcomes for all children and prevent avoidable deaths. This can be viewed at the following link:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/756697/early_years_high_impact_area_5.pdf

The Start4Life programme provides information on safe sleeping and sepsis through its Information Service for Parents email programme and the Start4Life website. Information leaflets, posters and social media toolkits are available to general practitioners, hospitals, children’s centres and local authorities. Start for life and the campaign resources can be viewed at the following links:

https://www.nhs.uk/start4life

https://campaignresources.phe.gov.uk/resources/campaigns/2-start4life/resources

PHE also works with the Lullaby Trust such as Safer Sleep Week, co-produced fact sheets for parents and professionals on safer sleep spaces to promote safer choices. This can be viewed at the following link:

https://www.lullabytrust.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Facts-and-Figures-for-2015-released-2017.pdf