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 improve (a) maternity safety and (b) prevent brain injuries during childbirth.

NHS England is currently delivering a three-year plan for maternity and neonatal services, which brings together recommendations from previous independent inquiries, and sets national measures to make care safer, more personalised and more equitable. Significant improvements have been made through the plan, including the roll out of maternal mental health services, implementation of Version 3 of the Saving Babies Lives Care Bundle, establishment of 14 maternal medicine networks across England, and Equity and Equality Action Plans being published by all local areas to tackle inequalities for women and babies from ethnic backgrounds.

To prevent brain injuries during childbirth, the Department has invested £7.8 million to develop the Avoiding Brain Injury in Childbirth programme which will reduce the number of avoidable brain injuries that occur during childbirth. This will be implemented by NHS England and will provide staff with the tools and right training to identify, intervene and manage obstetric emergencies as well as identifying and better identify signs that the baby is showing distress during labour.

Additionally, the Maternity and Newborn Safety Investigations (MNSI) Programme investigates certain cases of potential severe brain injury that occur in the first seven days of life. MNSI investigations seek to improve maternity safety and reduce the prevalence of adverse outcomes through providing learning to the health system via reports at a local, regional and national level.