Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that health professionals have training on providing positive information and advice to pregnant women who are expecting a child with Down's syndrome.

The NHS Fetal Anomaly Screening Programme offers Down’s, Edwards’ and Patau’s syndrome screening to all pregnant women in England. A range of e-learning training materials, for healthcare professionals on fetal anomaly screening, are available on the GOV.UK website at:

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/fetal-anomaly-screening-programme-overview#training

On 29 October 2016 the Department announced the evaluative roll out of non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) for Down’s, Edwards’ and Patau’s syndromes. NIPT will be introduced as an additional test into the NHS Fetal Anomaly Screening Programme in England. Public Health England, who lead the NHS Screening Programmes, is working with a range of stakeholders including Antenatal Results and Choices, the Down’s Syndrome Association, Support Organisation for Trisomy 13/18 and the Down Syndrome Research Foundation to develop information and training materials for healthcare professionals and information for prospective parents in preparation for the roll out of NIPT as an additional option in the NHS Fetal Anomaly Screening Programme in England.