Maternity Services

(asked on 14th October 2016) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what progress the NHS has made on piloting the recommendations of the National Maternity Review since that review was published in February 2016.


Answered by
Philip Dunne Portrait
Philip Dunne
This question was answered on 21st October 2016

In its report, Better Births, the National Maternity Review set out a vision for future maternity services which provide safe, personalised, kind, professional and family friendly care. The Maternity Transformation programme was established in July to take forward the recommendations of the Review. It brings together partners from across the system and is independently chaired by Sarah-Jane Marsh, chief executive of Birmingham Children’s Hospital. A comprehensive programme of work is being developed to implement the vision set out in Better Births, early progress includes:

- The formation of Local Maternity Systems (LMS) to bring commissioners and providers together and develop a local shared vision for improved maternity services and outcomes;

- The creation of Early Adopters where NHS England is considering applications from LMS to implement key elements of Better Births including personalised care planning, continuity of carer, better postnatal and perinatal mental health care, innovations to the payment system and delivering safer care; and

- The selection of seven Maternity Choice Pioneers who are working to test ways of improving choice and personalisation for women accessing maternity services and roll out Personalised Maternity Care Budgets.

On 17 October my Rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health announced a series of initiatives to help us meet our ambition to halve by 2030 the rate of stillbirths, neonatal deaths, maternal deaths and brain injuries that occur during or soon after birth, with the

publication of the Safer Maternity Care action plan. Further detail of the plan can be found here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/safer-maternity-care

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