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 support maternity services in the Forest of Dean constituency.

Several steps are being taken to support maternity services in the Forest of Dean constituency, in addition to those being delivered nationally through the three-year delivery plan for maternity and neonatal services across England. These include, but are not limited to:

• the trust actively working to recruit additional staff and retain existing staff, including through the adoption of flexible working arrangements and a ‘retire and return’ scheme for midwives without on-call commitments, and with plans to recruit an additional 26 midwives by the end of March 2025;
• a new programme to manage predicted staff turnover and reduce reliance on temporary staffing; and
• dedicated support through the Maternity Safety Support Programme, following the Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) Section 31 notice in March 2024. The maternity leadership team has been expanded to support staff and implement the improvements identified by the CQC.