Parents and Babies: Health Services
(asked on 9th September 2026) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, in what way national guidance, training frameworks and service specifications for maternity, health visiting and perinatal mental health services support the use of evidence based observational approaches to parent–infant relationships, such as the Newborn Behavioural Observations and the Neonatal Behavioural Assessment Scale.
National guidance and service specifications recognise the importance of early parent-infant relationships and helping parents understand and respond to their baby’s needs. The refreshed Healthy Child Programme guidance and Best Start Family Hubs and Healthy Babies guidance promote evidence-based support for parent-infant relationships, including practitioner observation of interactions between babies and their parents and carers. The Healthy Child Programme guidance and the Best Start Family Hubs and Healthy Babies guidance are available at the following two links:
Through Healthy Babies, we are investing in national workforce development initiatives to increase practitioner skills and confidence in supporting parent-infant relationships in 75 local authorities with high levels of deprivation. These local authorities are expected to train their workforce in evidence-based approaches, such as Video Interaction Guidance.
NHS England also routinely identifies and disseminates best practice and learning across National Health Services and clinical networks to support local delivery of parent-infant relationship support.
Decisions on the use of specific observational approaches, including tools such as Newborn Behavioural Observations and the Neonatal Behavioural Assessment Scale, are made locally by services and appropriately trained practitioners.