Maternity Services: Finance

(asked on 10th October 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the press notice by the NHS entitled NHS announces £127 million maternity boost for patients and families, published on 24 March 2022, how much and what proportion of the £50 million to boost staffing numbers in maternity and neonatal services has been released to each NHS trust as of 10 October 2022; what estimate she has made of when the remaining funds will be released; and what recent assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of the progress that has been made in distributing this funding.


Answered by
Caroline Johnson Portrait
Caroline Johnson
This question was answered on 24th October 2022

The £50 million funding will be allocated during an 18 month period from the second half of 2022/23 and in 2023/24. For maternity services, trusts were invited to develop plans and bid for funding for obstetric leadership capacity, bereavement midwives and maternity support workers, with other funding allocated to projects such as return to midwifery programmes and international recruitment. For the neonatal services, Operational Delivery Networks worked with trusts to develop plans for the workforce. Allocations have been agreed and funding for 2022/23 will be released in November, with further allocations in early 2023/24.

The direct allocation of funding for local maternity and neonatal systems was increased by £6.5 million following the announcement of this additional funding. Resources have also been provided for specific projects to improve local maternity care, such as enhanced continuity of carer providing targeted support for the most vulnerable groups of women.

The Perinatal Culture and Leadership Programme has funding of £2.8 million and is on schedule to have engaged all maternity and neonatal services in England by March 2024. We have allocated £8.3 million for staff retention and trusts are using this funding to ensure that enhanced supernumerary support can be offered to newly qualified and returning midwives and pastoral support to the midwifery workforce.

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