Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an assessment of the implications for her policies of the report of the Independent Investigation into East Kent Maternity Services, published on 19 October 2022; and if she will make a statement.

A written statement to the House of Commons and the House of Lords was made on 19 October 2022 regarding the publication of the report of the independent investigation into maternity and neonatal services in East Kent Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Dr Caroline Johnson MP, also made an oral statement to the House on 20 October 2022.

The Department has established an independent working group, chaired by the Royal College of Midwifery and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, which will help guide the maternity transformation programme to take forward the next steps from the reports into maternity services at East Kent and Shrewsbury and Telford.

Together with the NHS, the Department will consider actions from both reports to form a coherent national delivery plan for maternity services.