Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 9 April 2025 to Question 43516: Maternity Services, whether he has set a deadline for (a) outcome and (b) progress measures in the three year delivery plan for maternity and neonatal care.

NHS England’s three year delivery plan for maternity and neonatal care services was published on 31 March 2023 and implementation of the objectives is due to run for three years until March 2026. Progress is monitored through the plan’s technical guidance, which sets out how progress will be tracked at a national level against the four key themes of the plan.

Due to the complexity of maternity and neonatal care and the need for robust validation, some of the outcome data is significantly lagged and will not be fully available within the lifetime of the plan. Much of this data is published by external organisations beyond NHS England.

Although the delivery plan spans three years, its objectives are intended to enable services to deliver improvements in care that will lead to sustained, long-term improvements in outcomes and experiences for women, babies, and families.