Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of the current level of health visiting capacity in (a) Buckinghamshire and (b) Milton Keynes given the expansion of Healthy Babies programme.

Alongside action to strengthen health visiting across the country, the Government has committed to expand the Healthy Babies programme to every area of the country, as set out in the Written Ministerial Statement made on 12 October (HCWS364).

This programme is expected to improve health outcomes for babies and their families through better access to joined-up support for infant feeding, parental mental health, and parent-infant relationships across the country, and its impact, including on infant health outcomes, will be assessed through a rigorous independent evaluation led by RAND Europe.

Funding arrangements for the national expansion are being finalised, and further details for individual areas will be announced in due course.