Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps he has taken to help improve the quality of maternity care in (a) Slough, (b) Berkshire and (c) England.

NHS England’s three-year delivery plan for maternity and neonatal services has made good progress across England by rolling out of new maternal mental health services, Saving Babies Live Care Bundles and families are being engaged more through additional funding for Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnerships.

Improvement to Slough and East Berkshire maternity services include alignment with the three-year delivery plan which include but are not limited to: the recruitment of more midwives to significantly reduce vacancies and have minimal shortages by 2025; increased access to services through a new maternity hub in Crowthorne; piloting a perinatal pelvic health service that provides women with information about pelvic health risks, signs of pelvic floor dysfunction, and prevention strategies; the implementation of the MAMAs phone line, a triage service staffed by midwives with interpretation services; a Rapid Communication Aid being developed to assist in identifying patient needs in 30 languages; free midwife-led antenatal education classes in Urdu being launched, focusing on birth preparation for over 24 weeks gestation; a culturally competent genetics service being established to support informed decision-making for Close Relative Couples; and equity training for staff on mandatory update day.

The Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust has focused on addressing inequalities by improving access to perinatal mental health services and antenatal and preconception information and promoting an increase in folic acid uptake.